they are saying no to trump's phony wall street give away of an infrastructure plan and yes to a democratic vision. >> yeah. people in politics have to think you will improve their lives. trump did make the promise. >> i would argue that no really does matter. >> right. >> the no just around russia as opposed to the no of the whole give away. >> naomi klein and heather mcgee, thank you very much. good evening, rachel. >> thanks to you for joining us this hour. in watergate, prosecutors believed they could not bring a criminal indictment against a sitting president of the united states. that's not totally settled law, but they believed they couldn't. a lot of legal experts believe it is not possible to criminally indict a sitting president. in watergate a lot of other people were indicted. 69 different people were indicted. criminally charged in the

watergate scandal. but president richard nixon wasn't one of them. the watergate grand jury considered president nixon to be a coconspirator but as a sitting president no federal prosecutor ever charged him with a crime. that's why it was such a crucial touchstone moment in american history when nixon stepped down as president and his successor gerald ford immediately pardoned him. it was a remarkably controversial thing. the country was in uproar. people were mad at ford about it for years and decades thereafter. it was something specific and important about nixon and about what the criminal law means around presidents. because nixon leaving office as president, him resigning meant that as soon as he was no longer president he could have been charged. he could have been criminally indicted. he might have ended up in

prison. it is the fact that gerald ford pardoned him as soon as he left office, that meant nixon never was charged. so we have never seen a president sent to the pokey. the iran contra scandal in the 1980s where there were a ton of criminal indictments. 14 reagan administration officials were criminally charged in the scandal up to and including the serving secretary of defense. in that scandal the president himself ro nald reagan was never named as a coconspirator and he served out the end of his second term. but like nixon reagan's successor as president george h.w. bush got to issue the pardons for reagan's scandal. all the indicted senior administration officials from iran-contra who hadn't had their criminal charges thrown out or their convictions reversed, all

of them were ultimately pardoned by reagan's successor, george h.w. bush. both watergate and iran-contra incidentally happened to be scandals from republican presidencies. but, you know, the investigations into those two scandals were not particularly partisan affairs. members of congress and the various people involved in the scandals didn't drop their party affiliations as soon as the scandal came to light. in both watergate and iran-contra those republican presidents in the end faced both democratic inquiz -- inquiz tors in congress. democrats and republicans challenged them on their involvement in the scandals. both democrats and republicans took an active role in the investigations. both democrats and republicans denounced those republican presidents in their

administrations when the scandal got to be too much. i think every generation thinks partisanship has gotten out of hand in our time. it was only the good old days when people rose beyond party affiliation to do what was honorable and right for the country even if it wasn't right for their party. it feels that way. it always feels like it's as bad as it's ever been. but history says otherwise. when there have been gigantic presidential scandals in the past, multiple criminal indictments of senior administration officials and the possibility of impeachment, high level administration officials going to jail or staring down the possibility, even when those scandals happened in what people of the time thought were unbelievably partisan environments, there is still a good historical record of people dropping their partisan allegiances in the face of major scandals, in the face of major

criminal wrongdoing. in those circumstances, people -- even elected officials in congress have dropped their partisan allegiances and let them slip a little bit for the good of justice, for the good of the country, for the good of criminal accountability. today, vice president mike pence hired private counsel. he hired a private lawyer to represent him personally in the ongoing investigations into the trump russia affair both in congress and by the special council former fbi director robert mueller. as of last night we now know the mueller special counsel investigation has now spread to include not just the russia investigation, but also the behavior of the president himself. the special counsel now looking at potential obstruction of justice by the trump white house related to the ongoing russia investigation. and because of this news about mike pence today, i think now we have learned one of the things

that's going to end up being really important about what we understand about robert mueller's special counsel investigation. the order spelled out that he would be investigating the question of whether the trump campaign or trump associates were involved in the russian attack on our election last year and he would be investigating other members that arose directly from them. but beyond what was in that initial order, since he started we have learned that he didn't come in and start this investigation from scratch. some of bob mueller's investigation at the fbi involved him picking up ongoing work, taking on and absorbing management responsibility for some investigations that were already ongoing before he started. for example, washington post was first to report last night that the obstruction of justice investigation into the president appears to have started at the fbi right after the president

fired fbi director james comey on may 9th. that was more than a week before robert mueller was appointed to his job. presumably that means the obstruction of justice investigation into the president was already started before robert mueller got there and took it over. it has also been reported that robert mueller is managing the ongoing investigation into ukraine. money that appears to have been looted out of the government by the now deposed pro-putin dictator of the country whose long-time political guru was trump campaign chairman paul manafort. that investigation -- the ukrai ukraine investigation has been going on for years. that touches on paul manafort directly and that robert mueller has taken over the investigation that ukraine theft, corruption,

money laundering investigation has now been incorporated into bob mueller's work as special counsel. in addition to that there is the case in virginia that he's taken over. this is turning out to be an important thing. one of the ongoing fbi and justice department investigations that was already under way before robert mueller was appointed special counsel is the case involving mike flynn. and his foreign ties. that ongoing investigation has been reported and described by multiple news outlets. it was confirmed as an ongoing fbi criminal investigation last week in sworn congressional testimony by james comey. now we know for sure it's happening. we know that the mike flynn investigation has produced already multiple subpoenas to businesses associated -- to people in businesses associated with michael flynn. we know a federal grand jury has been convened in conjunction

with that mike flynn case. that's how the subpoenas are being issued. we know that mike flynn case is being run out of the attorney's office in the eastern district of virginia and it's being led by a veteran espionage prosecutor, brandon van grack. the venue of the mike flynn investigation ends up being sort of newly important or at least newly interesting. about the vice president. there are federal prosecutor offices all over the country in every state. there are dozens of u.s. attorneys from sea to shining sea running federal prosecutor offices and handling all sorts of important federal investigations and prosecutions. everything from public corruption to big drug cases to terrorism to organized crime. you name it. so being the u.s. attorney anywhere in the country is a big deal. it means you are the top federal

law enforcement lawyer, law enforcement prosecutor in whatever your jurisdiction is. every inch of the country is covered by some u.s. attorney's jurisdiction. they are all important. i don't mean to cast dispersions on any other u.s. attorney's offices. but when it comes to big national security cases, particularly big complex national security cases, particularly big complex national security cases that might have big complex financial aspects to them. there are a couple of u.s. attorney jurisdictions. there are a couple of districts that i think are sort of considered first among equals when it comes to those kinds of crimes. one is the southern district of new york, the u.s. attorney's office in manhattan. well known as the controversially fired, high profile u.s. attorney from manhattan from the southern district of new york. that district is very high profile in terms of the national

security cases. the other district in the country that's super high profile for its big complex national security cases, cases that often have a nationwide and international reach, the other district like that besides southern district of new york is eastern district of virginia. right now u.s. attorney for the eastern district of virginia is dana bente. it's interesting. right now dana bente is running the u.s. attorney's office in the eastern district of virginia and also running the national security division at the justice department in washington, d.c. which incidentally makes him the number four person in the line of succession at the department of justice. he got a surprise mention last week in james comey's congressional testimony when comey said he consulted with dana bente after president trump told comey that he should make public statements exonerating trump in relation to the fbi's counter intelligence investigation on russia. comey says after donald trump

asked him to make those statements he went to day that bente at the justice department and asked him what to do about that presidential request. he said dana bente told him, no, do not make the public statements the president told you to make. dana bente is running that department while running the u.s. attorney's office in the eastern district of virginia. that u.s. attorney's office is where the michael flynn case is already under way. that eastern district of virginia office is where a federal grand jury is already convened, already reviewing evidence, already issuing subpoenas and working on the flynn case already. that eastern district of virginia u.s. attorney's office is where they've got the veteran espionage prosecutor heading up the investigation into mike flynn and his foreign ties. as special counsel mueller can convene his own new federal grand jury if he wants to, to

consider evidence and potentially down the road possible indictments in either the trump russia investigation or the obstruction of justice investigation or both. he could convene his own grand jury. he has the option to use whatever grand jury has been convened to work on the paul mama mana fort ukraine course or convene the jury already working in the eastern district of virginia. the eastern district of virginia venue is central to what's going on. when bob mueller was first appointed special counsel the first person we learned he hired to work with him, the first person named as coming with bob mueller to the job is a guy named aaron zeble, a former senior prosecutor from the eastern district of virginia. that venue keeps coming up over and over again in this case.

because of what we know about the venues involved here, because of what we know about the grand juries, investigators and prosecutors already on board and working these cases, because of that it sort of seems like a wise move by vice president mike pence today that he has not only hired a private lawyer, private counsel to look out for his individual interests of the investigations. that seems wise for sure. it seems particularly wise that out of all the lawyers in the world who mike pence might have picked he chose a guy who happens to be the former u.s. attorney from the eastern district of virginia. that makes total sense. that seems like an incredibly rational choice given what we know about the progress of the investigation, where it's taking place, who the personnel are that are involved in it. but it's interesting. beyond -- so mike pence picked this guy as his new attorney.

beyond his history, his experience in running the u.s. attorney's office in the eastern district of virginia here's a really interesting other thing to know about the man who mike pence chose as his personal lawyer. this is not some whipper snapper, some up and coming whiz kid at the start of his career. the guy mike pence just chose to be his private lawyer for these investigations has been around for a long while. one of the things he's known for in his career is the very interesting role he's had in other big republican presidential scandals. >> and in our washington studios now former air force general richard seacourt in the contra supply operation. general, those are strong accusations against you. it is hard for the public, i would guess, to accept the fact that in the interest of keeping project democracy alive a lot of people were making money according to senator paul tribble and you among them.

>> the senator has tried repeat lid to color me and my associates as profiteers. i have refuted the charges with specifics many, many times. >> i really could not hear all that clearly because of technical problems. let me say this. let the evidence speak for itself. i think there is clearly -- >> i cant hear what he's saying. >> the institutional statement that clearly this isn't the way to transact the business. there are no checks and baltss, no accounting. good people and policy get in trouble. we heard it through the testimony of oliver north today. there was no accounting whatsoever. he was relying on hakeem, seacourt and others and i don't think they were well served. >> you used a specific in terms of saying he made a profit of more than 40% on one transaction.

are you confident of the figures? >> those are his partners' figures supplied under oath. he can't dispute that. >> what about that general secord? >> i can dispute it and i have. >> i love that they are trying to have a fight and they're like, is that him? can you hear him? that happens to me all the time. tom brokaw, 1987 hosting a fight between richard secord, retired air force general, with a key role in the iran contra scandal and republican u.s. senator named paul tribul from virginia. iran contra was a scandal in a republican presidency. paul tribull was on the committee that investigated the iran contra scandal and he made himself a huge pain in the butt to among other people richard

secord for allegedly hiding his swiss bank account records while congress was trying to figure out the money flow between the reagan administration illegally selling weapons to iran and illegally shipping weapons to central america. they thought the money went through richard secord and paul tribull was trying to find the money and it made secord really mad. a republican but he became a real combatant, an aggressive figure in the iran-contra scandal. to defend himself and his own interests in the scandal he hired -- recognize him? he hired richard cohen, the same guy mike pence just hired to represent him in our current republican presidential scandal. it's very interesting. richard cullen had a similar role in watergate. very interesting.

he was also a lawyer for a republican congressman during watergate named caldwell butler, a republican from virginia. he was a republican member of congress who found himself in the middle of a republican presidential scandal. he was in his first term in the house of representatives. he got up as a brand new republican member of congress and caldwell butler questioned how president nixon did what he could have done. congressman wbutler voted to impeach nixon though he had previously supported nixon. he's famous for standing up and saying watergate is our shame as a republican member of congress. previously an ally of president nixon. congressman butler, too, had a lawyer who was representing his interests when he took this stand over and above his party's interests during watergate. his lawyer was -- richard

cullen. who mike pence just hired to represent him in the investigation into the trump russia affair and potential obstruction of justice. and so it's very interesting that the vice president has felt the need to hire private counsel, right? the specific private counsel he's chosen, who knows if we should extrapolate from those previous experiences in previous presidential scandals. the same attorney also represented tiger woods's wife in their divorce. i can't make anything out of that in this scandal. it would appear vice president mike pence does have stuff to worry about here. on the russia investigation he repeatedly made what are utterly implausible statements denying any knowledge of the concerns about mike flynn or mike flynn's foreign ties despite the fact that vice president pence was the head of the presidential transition effort when the transition effort was notified formally in writing and in

person multiple times about those problems with mike flynn that mike pence professed so much ignorance about. the white house has described vice president pence as being intimately involved in discussions with president trump that led to the decision to fire james comey. despite him being such a supposed insider, being so involved in the decision the vice president repeatedly made statements about why james comey was fired that were later contradicted by the president himself that were contradicted under oath by james comey. mike pence stood before the cameras and said the james comey firing had nothing to do with russia, said it was only in response to rod rosen stein's memo. neither of those appear to be the case. they are now contradicted by the president himself. so given the vice president's exposure on both of those things which happen to be both major elements of robert mueller's investigation, both the russia issue and the potential

obstruction of justice issue it's not surprising that the vice president has now found himself a private lawyer. but, oh, what a private lawyer he has got. that news breaking tonight. washington post first to break the story as they have been ahead on so many of the twists and turns in this investigation. there are two other pieces of this that have fallen into place today. we have details on that coming up. stay with us. when you booked this trip, you didn't know we had over 26,000 local activities listed on our app.

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senior official said bob mueller's investigation was looking at money laundering by trump associates. the suspicion is that any cooperation with russian officials would have been in exchange for some kind of financial pay off and there would have been an effort to hide the payments, probably through offshore banking centers. the sourcing there at the "new york times" is one former senior official sourcing from one official is usually nothing to "bank" on, pun not intended. if the "new york times" is right about that reporting that money laundering is a new focus for the special counsel that makes sense in light of something else we learned from new reporting in "wired" magazines of all places reporting that an experienced justice department trial attorney named lisa page is the latest hire for bob mueller's special counsel investigation. lisa page's specialty, wired describes her as having deep experience with money laundering and organized crime cases

including investigations where she's partnered with an fbi task force in budapest, hungary, that focuses on eastern european organized crime. that budapest task force helped put together the still unfolding money laundering case against dmitry firtash, a one time business partner of paul manafort, trump campaign chairman. they have been working on that character for a long time. they have been trying for years to get him extradited from europe. if special counsel robert mueller has brought on an experienced prosecutor from the firtash case one thing you can be sure of is that money is definitely a major part of the trail they are following here. and that gets us to tonight's scoop in the washington post. special counsel investigating jared kushner's business dealings. it's been previously reported by the post and other news outlets

that potential financial crimes by trump associates are an area of focus for the special counsel's investigations. the post was first to report jared kushner was a person of interest for the fbi investigation. now tonight the post has this. it's jared kushner's business dealings that are under fbi scrutiny. what does that mean exactly? joining us now is matt zabatosky from the washington post and one of the reporters behind tonight's scoop that special counsel is investigating jared kushner. thanks for speaking with us. i appreciate you joining us on short notice. >> thank you for having me. >> let me ask you how much further this reporting advances the story. the post previously reported that jared kushner was a person of interest. it had previously been sort of vaguely described that possible financial crimes by trump associates are an area of fbi focus. how does this advance those

stories? >> so i think it advances it incrementally but importantly. i can remember coming on your show several weeks ago when we had reported that jared kushner was a significant focus of the investigation and also that financial crimes were a significant part of the investigation. but at the time, i couldn't connect the two. i just knew they were looking at financial crimes and separately i knew they were looking at jared kushner. now we know they are looking at jared kushner's business dealings. he's a part of the trump family now, of course, being the president's son-in-law. he comes from wealth all his own. we know investigators are interested in that. why? exactly why, we don't know. they haven't alleged any specific wrongdoing on his part. as you mentioned just before i came on the feds are following the money. there could be money laundering

issues here. there are prosecutors who specialize in financial crimes. andrew weissman had the fraud section of the justice department before he came to work for bob mueller. long story short this is incremental but important. >> matt, just to be clear in terms of the way the special counsel is approaching this and the fbi broadly if they are looking at potential financial crimes by trump associates and as you report tonight potential financial wrongdoing by jared kushner does that mean the financial crimes or that financial wrongdoing has to do with colluding with russia? has to do with the initial focus of the investigation or could it be totally separate stuff they stumbled upon? >> it could be separate. i think jim comey said it best in his testimony. was it two weeks ago? last week? he said when you do an investigation like this, a complex investigation that looks at hard targets and wealthy business people you turn up a lot of stones.

you're going to find things under the stones and you have to follow through on them. certainly you can see areas where it would have to do directly with collusion with russia or a russian dealing. we know jared kushner met with a russian banker after the campaign was over in december. we know the fbi is interested in that. it could be something totally separate, you know. some other malfeasance in his businesses we don't know about yet. >> matt, appreciate your helping us understand this tonight. thank you. >> thank you. >> we have a lot more ahead including the top democrat in the house intelligence committee joining us live. stay with us.

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did the president fire director comey to impede the russian investigation? >> the president has been told he's not under investigation. as former director clapper, the director of national intelligence said there is no evidence of collusion. between our campaign and any russian officials. >> but tlhere is an investigatin into potential ties between the campaign officials and russian officials. >> that's not what this is about. >> did the president fire director comey to impede the

russia investigation? that's not what this is about. that was may 10. tonight mike pence has hired himself a private lawyer to represent him in the investigations into the trump russia affair and into potential obstruction of justice by the white house. joining us now is congressman adam schiff from the house intelligence committee. good to have you with us. thank you for being here. >> it's my pleasure. i came from the ball game. great to be with my colleagues. >> let me ask you about that. obviously everybody is still on tenterhooks waiting to hear the latest news about congressman scalise after the shooting yesterday as well as the congressional staffer wounded in the shooting. what do you think about going ahead with the ball game and what was it like tonight? >> i'm so glad they did. it was nice to be with our colleagues and to applaud that brave capitol police officer injured and threw out the first ball. just to see the members out

there enjoying each other's company and enjoying the sport it was really just the kind of antidote to an otherwise awful week. >> yeah. congressman, there have been moments in congress and moments in the country when something externally brought upon us brings us together and makes us drop the things that divide us. it lasts in some cases and it doesn't last in others. obviously the primary concern here is still the health of the people who were hurt here and the people who were traumatized by what happened. do you think this is potentially one of these moments where there might be a change in the way people approach each other, that this might be a last -- might have a lasting effect in terms of people despite their party seeing themselves as being on the same team here? >> i think it will have a lasting impact. how profound still very much subject to question, but it

undoubtedly will have an impact certainly on those of us in the congress and hopefully people around the country. i remember the first day gabby giffords stepped back on the house floor of a her grievous injury. there was no question about how united we were in just our sheer happiness at seeing her again, having her take those brave steps onto the house floor. you know, that left an impact. certainly didn't completely transform the institution but it did have an impact. this had an impact. i hope it will help us come together to recognize we are all americans, all part of the same family. we can debate things. but at the end of the day we all love this country and want the best for this country. >> congressman, you have a senior and a key role on a committee that's got very grave responsibilities right now, investigative role that the intelligence committee has taken with this russia attack and with

the scandal surrounding it. if you wouldn't mind sticking with us for a second break i have specific questions to ask you about that work and about the news that's just broken in that case. can you stay with us? >> absolutely. >> we'll be right back with congressman adam schiff.

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justice. it's been reported that special counsel bob mueller is investigating potential obstruction of justice. we have learned in the last 24 hours that a senate. can, the judiciary committee will also be looking at it. are you looking at that in the house? is any committee in the house looking at that? >> well, we are the only committee in the house that's been authorized by the speaker to look into any of the russia related matters whiches why it's so important we do investigate this. i don't think we can allow, for example, senator sessions's testimony to go untested. we don't want to create a precedent where members of the administration can come before congress, not answer questions, not invoke the privilege either. that would be a terrible precedent and we need to know the answers. if rod rosenstein's memo, if his letter were written knowing they would be used as a pretext for a decision made to hide the true motivation. i don't know that that's the case. i do know we should find out.

someone has to get to the bottom of this. bob mueller's job and i can't comment on what he may or may not be looking at. his job is to figure out whether charges should be brought against someone and if so, for what. our responsibility is equally important but different. it's our job to figure out what has happened to make sure there is no interference with any investigation including our own. and to report to the american people. so this work needs to be done and we are the only committee in the house that's authorized to look into this. >> are you negotiating with mike conaway, the top republican on the committee on this investigation? are you in negotiations with him on that? >> i have begun discussions with him about it earlier in the week. now, mike was at the ball field practicing during the terrible attack. i think he's quite properly taking time to deal with that. i look forward when he gets back next week and i didn't have a chance to see him to discuss it

further. i do think that if there is anyone trying to interfere with what the fbi is doing we need to put a stop to it. we need to make sure bob mueller gets the resources to do his job and is free of interference and if there has been an effort to interfere or obstruct we need to inform the american people. if we discover evidence of that, that's also something we would share with bob mueller. >> congressman adam schiff of california, top democrat on the house intelligence committee. came to us straight from the congressional baseball game. i appreciate you swinging by the studio on your way back. thanks for being with us. >> thank you. >> much more ahead tonight, stay with us. way ♪ ♪ but there were planes to catch and bills to pay ♪ ♪ so i moved my meeting saw him walk that day ♪ ♪ he was talking 'fore i knew it, and as he grew ♪ ♪ he'd say i'm gonna be like you, dad ♪ ♪ you know i'm gonna be like you ♪

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when the republican governor of michigan rick snyder called a lastily arranged press conference to talk about the city of flint, michigan, that city had already been through hell and was still going through hell. after snyder's state government basically poisoned the whole city's water with lead and wouldn't listen to the people of flint who were hollering about it for a solid year and a half. the governor installed a series of emergency managers to run the city of flint. those emergency managers switched the city's water supply. that decision ended up poisoning the whole town. almost two years into that ongoing crisis, january 2016, governor snyder called this press conference because he had something new and horrible to

share about flint. >> this is to continue the fact that we want to make sure we are making good communications with respect to flint. the information was recentlyme, thought it was important to share. over the course of 2014 and 2015, we saw a spike in legionnaire's disease with the genesee county. if you go back to the prior years, i believe the numbers for the proceeding years before 2014, we had six cases, 11 cases, 13 cases, and 8 cases. in 2014, we had 45 cases. and 2015 there were 42 cases. >> at least a dozen people died from the outbreak of legionnaire's disease in flint that happened after the water switch. and i say at least a dozen, because we might never know the total number of cases, the total number of deaths and the names of the people who died. in part because that outbreak was kept so secret for so long.

but, you know, the two high-ranking state officials who stood alongside rick snyder and spoke at that press conference with him when they finally broke the news about it months into the crisis? that day last january, the head of the health department and state's chief medical officer, those two top snyder administration officials, they both have now been charged with felonies for their roles in the legionnaire's disease outbreak and how its aftermath was handled. prosecutors say the chief of the health department knew about the outbreak in january 2015. that's a full year before that press conference informing the public. they say while his department wasn't telling the public what was going on, at his department, they were discussing how to, quote, if the flint river water was the cause of the disease, it would be bad or embarrassing for governor snyder, because that decision had been made under emergency management, and he'd appointed the emergency managers. researchers at the local university have been tasked with finding out if the water switch

caused the legionnaire's outbreak. those researchers say they were told by the state health department, by the state health department's chief medical officer that they should stop their analysis because what they were finding, quote, proved problematic. and when those researchers said publicly that they still had concerns about the water, a senior adviser to governor snyder threatened to call their university and get their funding taken away. when they told the health director that if they couldn't determine the source of the outbreak, more people could die from the outbreak, he responded that he, quote, couldn't save everyone. they say that he told them, quote, that people have to die of something. prosecutors in this case have witnesses who say they are ready to testify in court under oath to all of this. the state director, four other people, including a former flynt emergency manager appointed by the governor, they're all charged with involuntary

manslaughter, with causing a death through their responses to the legionnaire's outbreak. and the narrative that emerges from these charging documents is not just that state officials in the snyder administration failed to respond to a crisis and to alert the public, but they were particularly concerned that these deaths that the legionnaire's outbreak shouldn't be linked to the flint water switch, because that would look really bad for the governor, because it was his personally appointed emergency managers who carried out that switch. step back in that for a second. poisoning a whole city with lead is bad enough. then causing a disease outbreak that killed at least a dozen people on top of that is -- it's another level. the governor himself is not named in these latest charges. everybody involved insists they never told him what was going on. but this criminal case stemming from the flint water crisis has now reached the highest levels of state government other than the governor, a member of the governor's cabinet has just been charged with involuntary

manslaughter. and meanwhile, the city of flint still doesn't have clean water and is still trying to recover. and joining us now is karen weaver, the indefatigable mayor of flint, michigan. mayor weaver, it's good to have you with us. thanks for being here. >> i'm glad to be here. >> i want to get your reaction before i heard the charges. before we had a chance to review the charging documents, the charges themselves are so dramatic. how do you feel about this? >> you know what? they really are. people said these are some serious charges. and i said yes, they are. but what happened in flint was serious. and you hit the nail on the head, rachling, when you talked about lead poisoning being bad enough. but on top of, that we had loss of life. so it was serious what happened. and we're still trying to rebound from this. so they were serious charges, but they were serious crimes. >> you know, one of the things that i've been struck by in terms of the response to these charges, it's obviously the state attorney general who is bringing these charges, he has brought very serious felony charges against very

high-ranking state government officials. but the governor is not firing any of those people or taking them out of their jobs. would you have expected that from the governor? are you calling on the governor to do that? >> well, you know what? i found that out. and i was surprised about that. that they are still there. i wasn't expecting that. i had not had a conversation with him since these charges were filed yesterday. so i will be looking to have a conversation with the governor about this. >> and madam mayor, in terms of the legionnaire's outbreak, we talked a lot about lead and about your efforts to get the water pipes replaced and do what needs to be done in flint to deal with the lead poisoning. how confident are you that the legionnaire's issue is over and taken care of? >> we are waiting with baited breath to hear about that. now the s the time for legionnaire's to hit. while the test results that we have been taking have been coming back much better, we're hitting 90 degrees weather now. so we know we have to wait and

see what happens. so i'm waiting for this next round of test results. i'm really hoping not to hear anything about legionnaire's. but we're waiting because, you know, naturally, the people of flint are anxious. we're nervous what we're going to find with this. so we're not comfortable with that part of it yet, rachel. not at all. >> karen weaver, mayor of flint, michigan. plainspoken, indefatigable. you've been here a number of times updating us on what is happening in flint. thanks for your time and keeping us updated. thank you. >> thank you. >> all right. we'll be right back. ♪

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what you're looking at right now is footage from just moments ago. this is the end of this year's congressional baseball game. republicans and democrats shaking hands, hugging and embracing a little bit after the game ended tonight, if you're keeping score, the democrats beat the republicans 11-2. mostly what this game has ended up being this year, though, is a show of unity after yesterday's incredible shooting targeting republican members as they held their last practice before tonight's game. one of the people who was shot in that attack is former congressional staffer matt mika. he was shot multiple times yesterday. he has had surgery. his family put out a statement tonight he is alert and conscious, but he does need assistance breathing. he remaining in critical condition. we got a statement late tonight from the same hospital that is treating senior house republican steve scalise, who is the number three republican in thousand. he underwent another surgery today, his third round.

and he remains in critical condition. but the hospital did just put out the statement tonight saying despite the fact he is still in critical condition, they can say that his condition has improved over the last 24 hours. again, steve scalise took a single rifle shot to the hip. that bullet traveled across his pelvis and did a ton of damage. and he has been through a lot already, including the loss of a lot of blood. but everybody in the country obviously pulling for him. all right. well, that does it for us tonight. we will see you again tomorrow. now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." >> the baseball game, a great thing to see tonight. the thing about steve scalise as we all reported last night, these were scheduled surgeries. they knew coming in they weren't going to be able to fix this in one surgery yesterday. >> that's right. >> so it's all going according to skechltd rachel, while you've been working there the last hour, we have breaking news from rod rosens