>> there is a window here for the public to have the debate it hasn't had. hopefully that will happen. people with talk to their represents. jennifer rubin, joan walsh, thank you for joining me. that is all in this evening. the rachel maddow show starts right now. thank you for joining us this hour. july 4th is a tuesday this year, which means some people who have generous bosses will get an extra extra long weekend for independence day because you'll get the 4th of july off on tuesday, but maybe db depending on how you boss feels about it, maybe you will also get the monday off on july 3rd as well. that said, even if you've got a good boss who is giving you july 3rd, unless you've got a particularly great boss, even if you get the 3rd and the 4th off, you will probably be coming back to work on july 5th, on

wednesday. that's how that calendar shakes out this year, with july 4th on tuesday. and by num logical magic, that is also the way the calendar shook out in 1978. calendar fell the same way that year. july 4th was on a tuesday. lots of people got off the 3rd and the 4th. but pretty much everybody had to come back to work after an extra long weekend for the 5th and the 6th. except in denver, colorado that year. right after the 4th of july in 1978 in denver, colorado, everybody tried to come back to work on the 5th but nobody could get the work. at least nobody could get there on time. this was the headline from the rocky mountain news in colorado on july 6th, 1978. the 6th was the day after everybody was supposed to get back to work, right? after the long independence day weekend. you see the headline there. disabled, snarled traffic in

protest. quoting from the article, about 25 disabled persons seized two buses during wednesday morning's downtown rush hour snarling traffic and daring place to make arrests. shortly after the 8:30 a.m. takeover police arrived admitting they were not sure what to do. as police commanders came to assist on the scene, police officers decided not to arrest any of the handicapped protesters because, as one sergeant said, quote, we don't want to be the fall guys on this. those protesters were from a group that had been negotiating with the city of denver for years at that point. even brought lawsuits to try to advance their cause but they were not getting anywhere through those other means. and they had a very simple demand. they wanted to be able to ride the bus in denver just like everybody else even though they used wheelchairs. they wanted to be able to ride the bus in town, especially because as taxpayers they were

paying for it. so at 8:30 in the morning on the first day back from a long weekend, they really did shut down denver traffic by putting thoe themselves bodily in front of and behind city transit buses that were completely inaccessible to them because they used wheelchairs. and the protesters didn't just do it for the first rush hour after the long weekend. they go out there on wednesday of the 4th of july but they didn't leave. they stayed out there all day blocking the buses and then they stayed there for the evening rush hour, and then they stayed through that and they stayed overnight. look at this photo of people overnight sleeping in the street. this is them out of their wheelchairs. you can see one of the wheelchairs with nobody in it is on the right side of the picture. they've got their signs propped up under the windshield wipers of the bus. taxation without transportation. right? this group was not messing

around. they stayed all night and all through not just the 5th but all through the 6th. they completely missed with denver's traffic. and then you can see this headline from the late edition on thursday, july 6th from the denver post, quote, having made public aware, disabled end bus barricade. the group that pulled off that militant protest in denver in 1978, right after the 4th of july weekend, they first called themselves the colorado coalition of disabled citizens, eventually they changed their name to adapt. and they were relentless in denver. they kept at it. those protests as i said were 1978. this is from 1981 from the denver post. the guy on the right looks a little bit like jerry falwell. he's the chairman of the denver transit system. he's listening to the guy on the left in the wheelchair, the

other guy holding the mike for him. i would like to be able to ride the bus, please. i'm a taxpayer. i'm paying for a service that i cannot use. make it so i can use it, not letting this guy off of the hook. that was in '81. '82 another woman in a wheelchair getting arrested at the transit offices in denver. you see the cops surrounding her there. and the tactics they pioneered in colorado started taking off in places across the country as well. the week after that first protest in july 1978 in denver, the very next week, same kind of protest happened in san francisco. again, this simple demand. let us ride the freakin' bus. we're taxpayers. we pay for it just like everybody else does. make it accessible for us. we are citizens. you saw similar protests in new york city. you saw similar protests in washington, d.c. you saw protesters in wheelchairs turn up at particularly relevant national

conventions, like the american public transit association convention. hey, meet your wheelchair using would be customers if you would freaking make it possible for them to get on and off the bus. these were militant tactics with a very simple, very understandable demand. and police were oftentimes quite flummoxed with how to deal with this with people disabiliti disabiliti disabilities, particularly in wheelchairs. >> this is from the democratic convention held that year in san francisco. >> this city is pretty blah say about demonstrations but when 50 disabled people took to the streets in their wheelchairs demanding their rights and sometimes disrupting traffic, it caught people by surprise. they feel they've been isolated from society for too long. they want more opportunity for education and jobs.

>> we're hoping to accomplish access to the political system so our needs can be dealt with and met. >> there are a lot of disabled people, about 36 million in this country and they have a champion here for their cause. >> we have come here to this convention to insist that we have a lot to contribute to america. if only america will give us a chance to make that contribution. >> 11 years ago he lost a leg to cancer. yesterday his father was on hand in the hall to hear his son ted kennedy jr. >> franklin roosevelt was a great president. not a great handicapped president. david burrington nbc news, san francisco. >> that was 1984, the democratic national convention. you know by the year after that, by 1985 that protest movement that started in denver, colorado would pay off in denver,

colorado with denver becoming the first major city in the country to make its public transit system accessible to people in wheelchairs. that was 1985. but the end of that decade, those hard won gains wouldn't just be in places like denver. they would be nationwide. in 1990 george h.w. bush signed the americans with disabilities act. it did establish nationwide that public transit, buses need to have wheelchair lifts. they need to be accessible to people with disabilities. that movement that they started in denver, 1978, 1990 it paid off nationwide. and you know what? two years after that in 1992, the city of denver, which had been so freakin' annoyed with the wheelchair activists, the city of denver which was ready to boil over in frustration after the activists who had shut

down rush hour after rush hour starting in the '70s. in 1992 city of denver put up a freakin' plaque for them commemorating this, on the streets of denver that really ended up change the whole country. that plak is there today. and they rededicated it, put up a fresh one in 2005. they say that nobody is a hero in their hometown and that is usually true in the moment. sometimes if you wait a couple of decade they see what you did at home that bugged them so much when you did it turned out to be the right thing to do. adapt still exists. and from the very beginning they do not mess around. i will also say as an activist group that is that pushy, they have halls had a pretty good sense of humor. they preserved this bumper stick enwhen adapt was pushing for the

americans with disability act. that's their logo on the lefthand side. americans with disability act. the slogan below. to boldly go where everybody else has gone before. i love that because i love the slog slogan. i also love that you can find that at the denver public library because denver is so proud of their activists now. they're so proud of this part of the history of their city that changed the country. you can go to the denver public library to find a lot of this archival stuff. and this is not just the history of people with disabilities in our country. this is part of our history as a country. and on days like today it ends up being very useful history to know in part because on days like today we get an opportunity to follow leadership like that in a way we might not have expected if you didn't know where those folks were coming from. do you know anybody who has ever

had a baby? have you ever had a baby? do you yourself or your partner or your wife ever want to have a baby? are you planning on having a baby? heck, were you ever a baby? i hope so and i bet you were adorable. but you know, babies come into the world through a process that is -- and i don't mean the whole process. i mean the end part about the baby, hello, baby. you're here. babies come into the world with a process that is sometimes relatively simple, relatively easy but it can easily get more complex. having a baby can be expensive dependsi inon how it goes. but there are like 10,000 babies born in the united states every single day. and out of all of the births in the united states, and there are 10,000 of them a day, out of all of the births in the united states, there is a single

insurance provider that covers the cost of 49% of all births in america. one health insurance provider provides the health insurance that covers 49% of all births in this country. 10,000 births a day. half of them covered by one insurance provider. and that insurance provider is busy with other things too. if you're an adult in america that has any kind of disability, theoretically, having a disability doesn't mean you have to have any one type of insurance. you might have your health insurance from anywhere. but as it turns out out of all adults who have disabilities in the united states, again there is one insurance provider who provides a huge amount of those people's health insurance. there's a single health insurance provider who provides the insurance for fully 30% of all american adults who have disabilities. if you're a kid who has a disability in the united states, there's one insurance provider that provides the health insurance for 60% of all kids in

america who have a disability. it's the same insurance provider that insurance 30% of adults. it's tes same insurance provider that insures 49% of all births in america. it is the same insurance provider for nearly 40% of all kids in america. it's the health insurance provider for more than 75% of kids whose families live under the poverty line. it's the single largest health care, health insurance provider in the united states by a mile. you think medicare is big in terms of covering all of the old people in the country? this is bigger. how many people have their health insurance through this one provider in our country, it's the population of wyoming, vermont, alaska, n north dakota,south dakota, idaho, west virginia, new mexico, arkansas, mississippi, iowa, connecticut, oklahoma, oregon, kentucky, l

louisiana, minnesota and colorado combined. plus some. 75 million americans all have the same health insurance. and the big health bill that the republicans in the senate unv l unveiled today takes a meat ax to that health insurer. more than anything else it does. if you want to know one thing about it. let's say you want to know one good thing and one bad thing. the good thing for rich people is that it's a huge tax cut for rich people. that's one really good thing. the bad thing is it takes, as i said, a meat ax to that one health insurance provider, biggest health insurance provider in the country. singles it out above everything else related to health care in this country. cuts more than $800 billion out of that health insurer. that insures more than 75 million americans in this

country. and we don't know if the republicans' bill is going to pass. without it even trying to get a single democratic vote for it. there's drama tonight as to whether they can get enough of their own votes to pass this thing. but today they unveiled it and because of what it does to medica medicaid, this is part of what happened in response. at around 1 is:30 a.m. today, about 60 people, a lot of them in wheelchairs turned up at the offices of the top republican in the senate, mitch mcconnell's office. they blocked the entrance to mcconnell's office. they were chanting no cuts to medicaid, save our liberty. one of the protesters held a sign over the entrance to mcconnell's doorway, capping medicaid equals death to the disabl disabled. a number of the protesters got at of their wheelchairs and laid on the floor. no cuts to medicaid, save our

liberty. capitol police started getting their zip ties ready to start their arrests, start handcuffing people and taking them away. you can see here one of the protesters who were lying on the floor in senate mcconnell's office wu picked back up and placed back into a wheelchair to be removed off the premises by capitol hill police. other protesters were literally picked up without their wheelchairs and carried out while still chanting. this one young woman who is seen here wearing a breathing tube, she was also arrested by capitol hill police. you can see her being directed out of the build by the police. another activist was pushed down the hallway in her wheelchair before being removed from it by police. >> no cuts to medicaid! no cuts to medicaid! no cuts to medicaid!

no cuts to medicaid! no cuts to medicaid! no cuts to medicaid! no cuts to medicaid! no cuts to medicaid! no cuts to medicaid. >> we later got this picture of that same woman. we think this is a disability rights activist snamd stephanie woodward. what you're looking at here, that's her in her wheelchair obviously with her hands zip tied behind her back. handcuffed. she was later loaded on to what appears to be a police bus, as was this other demonstrator seen raising her fist in protest even as she was being loaded on to the police bus for protesting. the group posted this picture on social media, some are out of jail, still waiting on others. all in all 43 people arrested in today's demonstration outside of

senator mcconnell's office. it was over early this afternoon. the group that organized this protest today was adapt. that same group founded way back in the day in colorado who did this radical stuff back starting in the '70s and who ended up changing everything about disability rights in this country. and one of the things that adapt and other disability rights groups fought for and chained themselves to police cars for and snarled traffic for and door stopped their senators for, over all of these years, one of the things that they have fought and fought for was for the right to not be locked up. not to be confined for their whole lives to nursing homes and close institutions for the disabled just because of their disability and specifically for want of the ability to afford help with certain things that could keep you living in your own home. medicaid does a million things.

medicaid is literally the health insurance that covers one out of every two births in this country. but for people of disabilities it's the single largest source of funding, primary source of funding for services that help people with disability stay in their own homes so they do not have to live in freakin' institutions. and if they're going to cut more than three quarters of a trillion dollars out of medicaid, so they can pay for this big tax cut they want to give the richest people in the country, that is going to have a radical effect on american's access to health care on tens of millions of americans ability to have health insurance coverage in this country. but for people with disabilities, if this happens, this is going to be a catapu ta hurdling them into a brutal past, battle days that were not that long ago. they were saying save or

liberty. save our liberty. think about your liberty if you're talking about the difference between having to live in an institution because you can't pay for a homme health aide to come check on you or have somebody help you get dressed in the morning. that's what medicaid pays for millions of people in this country. today that's what this was about. and you know, there's -- it's this story obviously we've known this was coming. this is a wave we've seen building in terms of what was going to happen. there's a ton going on in american politics, a ton that is bizarre and riveting about this new presidential administration obviously. but one of the porcimportant th to know about this administration is they have yet to past any substantive legislation at all. they have not passed any major legislation. this stuff they have actually passed as a bill that's gone through both houses is like renaming post offices.

this is the first actual policy. the first legislation they're going to try to past. and the politics are so horrendous that they're trying to pass it very fast. without saying anything about it until today and now it is out and i'm not sure they've quite appreciated the strength and capacity and tenaciousness of the people who have ever reason to fight them the hardest on this. much more ahead. stay with us. ar count. that's why i have the spark cash card from capital one. 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?

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ton of time spent in hearing rooms, arguments over endless drafts, considering official estimates of the costs and the benefits. you remember how this was when they created obamacare, right? that's not how this is going this year, to say the least. but what can be done about that. as long as the republicans have decided there will be no official hearings on their overhaul of the health care system, as long as there are not going to be official hearings in the actual congress, our next guest has decided that maybe he can try to do it for them. next best thing maybe? he's going to hold what they're calling an emergency field hearing tomorrow with voters in his home state which i guess is technically the next best thing about real hearings being held about the bill in congress. joining me now is senator chris murphy, a member of the senate health and education committee. senator murphy, thank you for being here.

i know this is a critical time. >> thanks for having me tonight. >> what do you think is the practical consequence of the fact that there are not going to be hearings, that the time period for considering this is so compressed that even at this late date, which we're told is less than a week before they will vote on it, there's no actual language of an actual bill. for people who don't care about congressional procedure and don't know how these things are down, why is the way they're doing it so materially important here? >> i think there's two answers to that question. the first is there is actually a practical benefit that comes from having open hearings. you hear from experts, you hear from people in the field. you have the chance to bounce your ideas off of the public. and you get a better product in the end. i mean, one of the things that is so maddening about the bill that was released today is that it is just intellectually and practically bankrupt. it doesn't work. it doesn't solve a single

problem that republicans have identified. number of people without insurance will go up, premiums will go up, costs will go up. the hearing process is a process that gets you a better product. but for republicans this is really about a bet. a bet that if they rush this through as quickly as possible people won't get to the bottom of how truly evil this bill is. they know this is an 'em bar raising product. they know this is going to hurt millions of americans and they hope that if they rush this thing through people won't have the time to figure it out. but they will. they already have. they know that this is a big that is essentially cost shift from all of those people that you just showed, the disabled, the moopoor, middle class ameris who have gotten insurance through the affordable care act through drug companies and millions. $800 billion cuts in health care to pay for $600 billion dollars in tax cuts for people who don't need it.

i don't think they're going to be able to pull this over on the american public but that's what they're trying to do. >> you're a democrat. a fellow senate from connecticut richard blumenthal is also a democrat. you' both opposed to the bill. i imagine tomorrow you're going to hear support for your position -- i say that statistically because what the republicans have pulled together here is very poor, very unpopular. but public opinion doesn't necessarily drive things directly. it's individual senators who are going to have to make the decision on how they're going to vote on this. what do you think about the so supportability of your republican colleagues to constituents complaining, to protests and activism of the kind we saw today? >> i don't think that mitch mcconnell has the votes tonight. i bet you he's really close. but i bet there are a handful of the relative moderates in his

caucus, people like susan collins and lisa murkowski who are worried about the humanitarian catastrophe that the bill is going to be for the nation. and there was a lot of kerfuffle over the fact that rand paul and mike lee said they're not ready to vote for it. those guys are not going to sai the country from the disaster of the health care bill. it's going to be the folks in the center of the caucus. i think they're listening to their constituents. and to the extent that we can drag this process out over the weekend, as long as we can next week, it will give them more time to tip the balance. i think he's close to having 50 votes but i don't think he's there yet. >> is the time flexible. those of us looking from outside are assuming that senate mcconnell wants to do this next week at the latest because he wants it done and cooked before the senators go home for the

july 4th break and face a lot of protests if they try to do public events over the recess. if he doesn't have the votes by this time next week, do you think the thing is over or do they keep pushing it and working it? >> i imagine that senator mcconnell doesn't think that he gets more votes over the 4th of july break, and he would be right. if this thing is still out there stinking in the american public over the course of the break, he's not coming back with more than he started with. imagine we're having to vote one way or the other next week which means that the next four or five days are mission critical. that if you have any time to spare to try to influence these members, now is the time to do it. i think we're going to have a vote one way or the other. we'll try to extend that process as much as we can with amendments. but he's telegraphed that he may shut down or ability to do that. he's going to give us two minutes of debate on every

amendment. and that will mean that the bill gets a vote sometime next week whether we want it or not. >> people focused on this. this is no longer an abstract thing. this is going to happen right now. this is the time that anybody has been strategizing about it. it's game time now. very short order. senator chris murphy, senator from connecticut, appreciate your time tonight. >> thanks, rachel. >> all right. thanks. much more ahead. -friday. we gotta go. [ tires screech ] any airline. any hotel. any time. go where you want, when you want with no blackout dates. [ muffled music coming from club. "blue monday" by new order. cheers. ] ♪ how does it feel the travel rewards credit card from bank of america. it's travel, better connected. the travel rewards credit card from bank of america. (i wanted him to eat healthy.,

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i suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process. once again it will be hard. the cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and our conscience long enough. health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait and it will not wait another year. >> president obama, not one gray hair. barely one month into office as president. he said he understand the political perils but he would not wait. his administration would push ahead and they did despite what they knew would be political head winds and what ended up being a boost to a political right in this country. they were so psyched for health reform because it gave them something concrete to push back against from this popular new president who has whooped them and the republican party in the

2008 election. when president obama and the democrats pushed health reform, republicans went pretty nuts against it and they grew a whole new variety of fired up conservative activists in opposition to president obama's health reform. because of that the democrats knew that their efforts to pass health reform were probably going to cost them at the polls. they knew there would be an leg toll cost of it that first year of the obama presidency. a series of tough special elections. but in the three hardest fought special elections that happened right at the start of obama presidency, before the mid terms in 2010, despite the prevailing political winds, despite the backlash to the democrats trying to pass this health reform the republicans were mobilized against, even with that the first special elections, the democrats won all three.

and these were tossup districts, one of which new york's 23rd congressional district had been held by a republican dating back to the 19th century. dating back to the 1870s. three competitive special elections in the house and three victories for democrats. that was right after obama was elected. if you were a democrat, you might have been forgiven for thinking, wow, maybe democrats are immune to the way the pendulum always swings back after big national elections. maybe they could pass this huge transformative health care bill and maybe they won't get punished for it. they might be awarded for their bold agenda. seven months after the special elections they learned they were not immune, they were not reward rewarded, they got crushed in the 2010 midterms. >> it's clear tonight who the winners really are and that's the american people. while our new majority will serve as your voice in the people's house, we must remember

it's the president who sets the agenda for our government. the american people have sent an unmistakable message to him tonight and that message is change course. >> this is something that i think every president needs to go through. now i'm not recommending for every president that they take a shellacking like i did last night. >> democrats got whiend out in the first med term election. they got shellacked. they lost 63 house seats, the biggest romp in over half a century. they gave up control of the house to the republicans. they lost six senate seats too. they did in fact get a shellacking. that is now a technical term. and that is one of the things that can happen when you use up a ton of political capital to pass huge legislation, particularly when it is galvanizing to your opponents and to their base. well now a new administration

and a new majority in congress are trying to make their own sweeping changes. so far republicans this year, like democrats in obama's first year, they've been holding on to their house seats in these special elections. they're 4 or 4 this year, despite president trump's unpopularity and despite outcry over the republican plans to try to repeal obamacare. this administration thus far has passed and i don't mean it in a mean way but they have passed zero meaningful legislation. they've passed no significant legislation at all. what they're going for their first big effort is a health care bill that is enormously unpopular right now anone that they may nevertheless pass through the senate within the next few days. what will happen then. joining us now nbc political s historian. big legislation is something

that we think of as having political cost. big legislation particularly on the things that galvanize big opposition. is there any way from a historical perspective to weigh the political winners and losers, the political cost benefit of pushing something really big. how does the president decide whether or not it's worth it? >> you would think that a president is moved to pass big legislation so it looks as though he's doing something important. but lyndon johnson for instance in 1965 passed this hugely important voting rights act allowing everyone to vote. you know, important constitutional protections. and he probably paid for that big time in the 1966 mid terms. he lost dozens of seats. it wasn't quite as bad as 2010. but after election day when they lost all of those seats, southern governors came down to the lbj ranch and they begged him saying, no more civil rights legislation. we can't stand any more of this, this is going to make us lose and he didn't listen.

>> he knew when he signed the civil rights legislation that it was going to have a devastating effect on him and his party. >> he famously said when i sign these bills i'm giving the south to the republicans for a generation. he was wrong. it was a lot more than that. >> in terms of the procedural stuff going on here, one of the things that's interesting, we don't know what the political impact will be, is how secretive the republicans have been. back in 2009 and 2010 when president obama was passing obamaca obamacare, it was consuming. everybody knew what was in the bill and that's part of why there was a big fight about it. the republicans are trying to do the exact opposite of that. does that change -- is that likely to change the political impact of what they're trying to pass in. >> i think it should. going back to the founders, the founders' idea was this country

is not going to be england. the decisions are not going to be made secretly and at the top by the king. they wanted as much transparency and as many fights in congress as many because they thought that brought the best bills. i hate to say if the founders came back and saw this they would cry. but if the founders came back and saw this they would cry. >> speaking of that, could you stay here for a second because i have something to ask you about president trump. >> my pleasure. can't wait. >> we'll be right back right after this. when you booked this trip,

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question. mr. trump, did you ever tell him you were tape recording conversations with him. trump, i'm not equipped to tape record. i may have said it once or twice to him to just to on the delph because everything i said to him, he'd write incorrectly. so just to try and keep it honest. i don't remember that, but i may have said to him i want to tape this conversation. question, i want to tape or you were taping? trump, i think i might have said i want to tape. i'm not equipped to tape. i'm not set up to tad-record conversations on telephones but i may have said to him -- i think i said i want to tape this conversation, as opposed to -- but i'm not sure that i did say it to him. but i knew he was so sick, he was such a degenerate in the way he wrote. a very dishonest person. the only way i could have him know what i was saying is to

have him think that he was being tape-recorded. end quote. that was donald trump a decade ago in 2007, he was still just a new york real estate guy. and at the time of that deposition he was caught up in a lawsuit that was going bad. he was suing his biographer because he didn't like what ended up in the biography. and in the course of the lawsuit the biographer -- incidentally tim o'brien who was a guest on our show -- saying that tim o'brien told him during the course of the conversations, he said over and over again he was tape-recording their conversations. in the course of the lawsuit trump gets asked about that under oath on the record in an official deposition. mr. trump you told tim o'brien over and over again that you were tape recording your conversations with him. did you actually tape-record those conversations? and despite all of the times that he priestly said it, when he had to answer that question at risk of

perjury, the future president said i just wanted him to think i was recording him. of course i didn't actually record him. tapes? what tapes? i'm not equipped to tape anybody. who tapes people. so this is a thing he does. he has done this for years. there it is, black and white in a court deposition. that is why it was not totally out of left field when the president raised the specter last month that there might be tape recordings from his one on one meetings with james comey at the white house. the president asked james comey to pledge his loyalty to the president in one of those one on one meetings. for weeks the president and the white house itself has been fuelling speculation of whether the tapes might exist. the house intelligence committee sent a formal letter demanding that the white house turn over those tapes to the committee. they set a deadline of tomorrow and so now today the president admitted that no, of course there are no tapes.

this is of course not the first time a white house taping system has been a point of interest, cause for drama in our national history. we've never quite seen it play out like this. back with us again is nbc news presidential historian. i just have to ask you. when -- he better hope there are not tapes thing, when that happened did you think there might be tapes? >> not in a million years. i knew a bit of what you're talking about. and it's classing donald trump. he's a bluffer. he claimed he was sending investigators out to hawaii to investigate barack obama's birth and you wouldn't believe what these investigators were finding. >> i'm going to make it public very soon. >> and the question is this the way the leader of a great nation behaves. >> you had talked on the issue of taping, you talked about the

fact that while nixon's tapes were the most famous, a lot of presidents made tapes. there are famous tapes of lbj in the white house that are fascinating because he was an incredible character. incredibl. nixon, of course, was the final -- the final act, the thing that really pushed him out of office was the disclosure of the tapes where he all but admitted to trying to obstruct justice in watergate. after that, do we believe that any president since then has had a taping system in the white house? >> we think nothing as comprehensive as nixon's. there's a possibility that on rare occasions, there might be a call with a foreign leader which is taken down in some way, but that has nothing to do with nixon's system, which as you know, recorded absolutely everything. nixon was such a klutz, you know, his people had a switch that turned it on, and it was voice activated because they figured he didn't have the physical dexterity to turn this thing on and off. and so as a result, that smoking

gun tape was made, and as it happens, it was made 45 years ago today. >> it was made 45 years ago today? >> indeed, in which he said to bob haldeman, his cleef of staff, i want you to use the cia to stop, block the fbi investigation of watergate. >> that was 45 years ago today? >> everything old is new again. >> it's like you create historical reference points as a force field around you, as you move through the world. you're like, i'm going to be here. i'll arrange for something to have happened 45 years ago today that's relevant. >> see what i can do. >> thank you very much. we'll be right back. stay with us. tech: when you schedule with safelite autoglass,

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where you do business. ♪ ♪ we've got one more story coming up for you tonight. new details, intriguing details on a new line of inquiry in the trump/russia investigation. this is something that we were on to a little bit with last night's show. today that story broke open considerably more. we've got that story coming up for you right at the end of the hourment i do want to preview something before we get to that, which is that you might have heard that paul ryan has a very interesting new challenger, a guy running against him in his district in wisconsin. this guy has done the political ad that is being described as the best political ad by any democratic candidate in the last couple of years, and he's going to be lawrence's guest right after our show ends at the top of this hour. that's coming up but we've got one more story for you next. stay with us. [ indistinct chatter ]

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working on my feet all day gave me pain here. in my knees. so i stepped on this machine and got my number, which matched my dr. scholl's custom fit orthotic inserts. so i get immediate relief from my foot pain. my knee pain. find a machine at drscholls.com. on last night's show, we reported on one of the biggest and bluest counties in texas, dallas county, and how they got hit by russian hackers ahead of last year's presidential election. homeland security had sent out a list of suspicious i.p. addresses from which hacking attacks had been launched against u.s. elections systems at the state and local level. the dallas county election administrator scanned her county's system to see if they'd been hit by any of those i.p. addresses. she found 17 matches. 17 of those i.p. addresses had hit their system.

federal authorities then told dallas that at least some of those 17 i. p.p. addresses thatd hit them were definitely from computers in russia. hacking doesn't have to mess with the actual tabulation of votes to impact an election, to have an effect on the results of an election, right? if a hacker screws up the voter file, voter registrations, that too could have an impact, particularly if it creates chaos on election day. we talked about that on last night's show. today "time" magazine moved the ball forward on that. they're reporting that the hacking of state and local elections databases was, quote, more extensive than previously reported. they say there was, quote, at least one successful attempt to alter voter information and the theft of thousands of voter records that contained private information like partial social security numbers. time is sourcing this to current and former officials. they say in one case investigators found that there had been manipulation of voter data at a county level. but the manipulations were discovered ahead of the

election, and they were rectified. that's according to two sources who they say are familiar with the matter. now, time isn't saying what was stolen. they don't say what county this data was stolen in. they say that investigators have not necessarily identified if the hackers were russian. but they do say the data was stolen on the county level. it's unclear how many more instances of this there are given that there are 9,000 different election jurisdictions in this country. but now both "time" magazine and cbs news are reporting that congressional investigators have opened a new line of inquiry here, and they're looking into whether any stolen private information on voters made its way to the trump campaign during last year's presidential election. new stuff every day. watch this space. that does it for us tonight. we will see you again tomorrow. now it's time for show show with lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence. >> hey, rachel, you pay attention to american politics. >> sort of, yeah. >> so tell me what happe