even chaos that's graspable on ideological lines. right? it's all kind of aspects and clusters of resentment and hatred. >> that's why you have michael rim, staten island excon and roy moore, mr. ten commandments on the same sort of bannon wing of this thing. thanks for joining us tonight. >> that is at all in." the rachel maddow show starts right now. >> a busy news today, there may, may, possibly be a plan to undo the damage the president tried to inflict last week on the nation's health care system. you will recall the president last week announced a policy change that, a, would cost taxpayers about $200 billion. b, it would cost a million americans to lose their health insurance coverage, c it would raise health insurance costs, it was expected to raise premiums

by 20% in the next year. oh, all that for the bargain price of $200 billion, which we wouldn't voice to spend if the president would loo everybody the darn thing alone. so that bargain policy change was announced by the president, today democratic senator patty murray and le mar alexander, announced a bipartisan plan they've come up with to basically undo that policy change announced by the president. it used to be when something was announced as a bipartisan proposal in washington, that would make that thing more likely to pass. it would make it less controversial. these days, anything bipartisan is seen as an affront. even when it's a relatively specific sort of boring policy fix like that. so patty murray and lamar alexander had their proposal. now we let the bipartisan food fight begin while the american businesses wait do see if that intentional damage and that intentional hike in costs is going to be inflicted on us all

or not. also tonight, we just learned the former white house spokesman sean spicer has been interviewed by the special council robert mueller, investigating the vugs attack last year and the question on whether the trump campaign was in on it. politico.com reported sean spicer spent much of the day speaking with mueller's team today. i have to tell you, that really is as much as we know on that story. just to give you the totally level with you, to give you the god's honest truth about reporting ob robert mueller andspecial council's investigation, his process, his team of prosecutors and the special officer, they are opaque as all get out. anybody who tells you that they know what's going on inside the mueller investigation, that person is either a part of the mueller investigation or that person is a lying deal. they really don't leak. so we don't really know anything about what robert mueller is up

to for real. we den know at what point he has reached in his investigation. but i will tell you, there are two prevailing theories inside the news business as to what it means that white house chief of staff reince priebus and spokesman sean spires had their interviews. one theory is that maybe robert mueller is getting to the end of his planned interviews, because in a strategic sense, at least in an abstract strategic sense, if anybody can be expected to tell tales about a serving president and how that president got into officer, you might expect to get those tales, not from anybody still currently serving in the white house, you might expect to get those tales told by people who were i don't know publicly humiliated and fired from the white house and might conceivably have an axe to grind against this president. anybody treated horribly and publicly humiliated, chewed up, spit out and fired by the

current white house and who since then has no new job such a person might conceivably hypothetically be a ripe target getting dirt on the white house, trying to build a case against the fish swimming around in the white house. that's one prevailing theory, maybe priebus and spicer maybe them being interviewed indicates the list of people who robert mueller is interviewing is getting to the exciting part. that within theory. alternate theory is less dramatic, but, therefore, may be easier to believe, it's possible in this alternate theory that sean spicer and reince priebus might be early interviews in the mueller investigation. simply there is less of a legal fight, less resistance, less red tape to secure cooperation and interviews from former administration officials than it is to talk to people who are

still serving in the white house who have the benefit of the whole white house defense operation to try to fend off the investigation. so, again, we don't know, and anybody who tells you they do know is trying to shine you up for something. trust me, they don't know. so the opaque methods and tactics the pace of their inquiry, how close they are to a public accounting of what they found, all that is a black box to us. and what we know thus far in terms of their interview with current and former white house officials is an interesting mix. based on good reporting, we have been told at least that they've interviewed the chief of staff of the national security council, chief kellogg. we have been told they've interviewed reince priebus, former chief of staff, we met with his lawyer last week. now from mr. itco, we know that sean spicer, a former white house spokesman has had his interview as well. so don't read more into that

than is available to be reported. there is a lot of speculation, not a lot of knowledge as to what mueller is doing. we will have a little more news on that subjects coming up over the course of this hour. but we will start tonight in 2006. in modern american electoral history, 2006 is a real swing of the pendulum moment. republican president george w. bush first elected in 2000, his party did unexpectedly well in the 2002 mid-terms, usual lay president's party loses a bunch of seats in the mid-terms. that was not in 2002 t. republicans did great. that was largely contributed to the country following the 9/11 attacks n. 2004, george w. bush was re-elected. it was time for another mid-term in 2006. if 2006, after those three previous elections, this was no mystery the public was due for the swing back. we knew the democrats would do well in '06.

in '06, dra itself exceeded even those very high expectations. if 2006, democrats did great. they took complete control of congress. nancy pelosi became the first speaker of the house in u.s. history, even though the george w. bush administration has another two years left to run, in political terms, they really ended up limping to finish line t. president and vice president were so profoundly popular vice president chain disappears from the george w. bush administration t. president, himself, never suffering his approval levels quite as low as cheney's, he picked his successor. and part of the reason for that dramatic change in the political fortunes, between bush's 2004 re-election and the mid-terms, part of what explains that swing

is the american disaster that was the occasion for this photo. this photo was taken in arizona on august 29th 2005. president bush and his would be successor senator mccain eating birthday cake the reason this photo ended up being famous, this one became famous alongside this pick, from the following day, from august 30th. both of these pictures seemingly very happy on the surface have both become negative touchstones, disaster touch stoens from the george w. bush administration, that pakt i picture of president bush strumming guitar in california and enjoying birthday cake in arizona, both of those were taken while hurricane katrina was on the 29ing making landfall in new orleans and on the

following day, on santoruming the guitar day, that was the day that new orleans was absolutely devastatingly inundated with flood waters, caused not just by that storm but the breach of the levees that protected that city. 1,800 americans died in hurricane katrina. it was a terrible and immense natural disaster. it was a catastrophic failure of american infrastructure. and it was all terribly compound by a disastrous tone deaf late inept response by the federal government. and that explains a lot of what happened in politics in 2006 and 2008. but it didn't take long for people to physical out that's what was going on. it did not take long after hurricane katrina hit for the country to start figuring out what happened there was not just a storm but a failure of our government. on the gulf coast the

rescues were joined by recriminations, stung by the initial response was too little too late. administration officials today were on the ground defending the government's response, also getting a first-hand reaction and a look at the rescue operations. >> nearly a week after the levee broke in new orleans, rescuers continued to pull victims off rooftops in the pitch black of night and under a seriesing l.a. sun with the death toll expected to climb into the thousands in new orleans alone, a local politician said on "meet the press, request itself the federal government's slow response is partly to blame. >> bureaucracy committed murder here in the greater new orleans area. bureaucracy has to stand trial. >> the administration admits mistakes were mate, mike at chertoff says the focus must be many on t on the ongoing emergency. >> no heads will roll? >> if people want to chop heads

off, the opportunity will be there to do it t. question is, what do you want us to spend our time on now? >> that was september 2005, early september, while rescues were still under way. while americans were still dying every day in new orleans. eventually, some heads did roll in the george w. bush administration for that disastrous, botched response, george w. bush's fema director who appeared to be appointed to that job more as a patronage hire rather than his qualifications, he was fired a week after that bod broadcast we just showed you. as 2005 rolled into 2006, that's when the investigations started into what went wrong t. white house did its own internal investigation t. senate did its own investigation. but in the house, there were some interesting things there. the house got their investigation, their report from the investigation. they got it out first. which may it the most influential. the federal government reviews what went wrong.

they were first. it had an interesting origin story. in the house, there was a big partisan fight over the way that investigation would be approached. the house wanted it to be a special select committee involving members of both parties, they rejected the way the republican majority was rejecting it. house democrats decided that no democratic members of congress would participate on a formal level. there was a the house of representative's report into what happened in katrina. officially it was an all republican house report. looking at the response by that republican administration and the rules of the politics wouldened up being a white wash. but that's not what happened. this was eric lipton's report in the "new york times" the night before the house posted their report of that investigation. you see the headline there

republicans report on kick, asails administration response, there's lead, house republicans plan too issue a blistering report saying they delayed the evacuation of thousands of new orleans residents, by failing to act quickly on early reports that the levees broke during hurricane katrina. he was reporting at the time of the washington post, which had the first report that this investigation whereas going this way. they called it quote an unusual compendium of criticism by the house gop, which generally has not been aggressive. quote the 600-plus page report lays primary fault with the passive reaction and misjudgment of top bush aids. singling out michael chertoff, the operations center and the white house homeland security council. those parts of the government were singled out even by republicans in congress during

hurricane katrina. not just because of the lang of preparedness the lack of caution and recognition about the magnitude of what was about to happen to new orleans, despite the fact that that 120r78 was bearing down and the national hurricane center was were dead right about what was going to happen. it's not like the government didn't have a warning. right. but those parts, those specific parts of the government singled out by this remarkable republican report on the failings of the government around hurricane katrina. they weren't just singled out because they didn't plan right. once the disaster started, they couldn't figure it out. they handled the administration so poorly. no one knew what was going on, if no one knows what's going on, that's symptom that your disaster response has failed. and the breach of the levees in new orleans was specific, but crucial, consequential part by

that failing by our government. yeah, it was an infrastructure failing. there was a failure in recognizing it had happened and getting people to safety because of it. it was a really specific thing. a specific way the bush administration failed on that. on monday morning the 29ening, the day of landfall, fema had a hock confirming an eyewitness view of a breached levee in new orleans a. fema official. his own agency, fema and the homeland security department and the white house was somehow unable to absorb that information even from their own senior official. and that had fatal consequences for americans in new orleans. here's how that house republican wrote it up. perhaps the single most confirmation of the levees in new orleans, beyond the importance, itself, it determined whether or not katrina would be another bad storm in new orleans or the

nation's worst-case hurricane disaster. because homeland security failed to anticipate the lengthy consequence of the storm and secure the buses, boats and aircraft ultimately nets to evacuate the flooded city prior to katrina's landfall, because they didn't prepare, the next critical point became the confirmation of the levee's breaches. if they breached, the flooded city would have to be completely evacuated. any delay would result in the delay of the post-landfall evacuation of the city. and that is exactly what happened a. fema official went up in that coast guard helicopter the morning of the 29th, saw it with his own eyes, conveyed that information to fe marks convey thad information to the white house. and that information just disappeared. and so pond rolled on into monday morning, monday afternoon, mon evening, monday

midnight. everybody got a good night's sleep. on tuesday morning the president went and played guitar in california. then after he left california, he went back to his ranch in texas to go resume his vacation. the vice president had been fishing in wyoming. he stayed fishing in wyoming. it's a nice time to fish in wyoming t. white house chief of staff was on vacation, he was up in maine, no reason to scramble. and the head of the homeland security department on tuesday the day after the landfall the day after the levees were breached and new orleans started to drown and fema officials themselves were trying to notify their own agency and government of that on tuesday, homeland security secretary michael chertoff flew to an avian flu conference in georgia. why not? not busy. and 1,800 americans died. and not very many heads rolled at all. in fact, quite the contrary.

we're terrestrial years on now, the washington post reports that on the white house homeland security council, which was singled out for blame in terms of the management of this disaster, the white house homeland security council at the time of hurricane katrina, the head of the prevention preparedness and response director of the homeland security count sim the special assistant to the president for prevention, preparedness and response, the white house point person for information the person in charge on the homeland security council of managing the flow of information about the storm to the parts of the federal government that were supposed to respond it to, that person, that official was a young woman named kierstrstjen neils neilsen. her head did not roll after hurricane katrina, although she played a starring role in some of the reports that criticized the government for their response, kiersten has been nominated by president trump to run the department of homeland

security, which is a $40 billion bug, 240,000 employees and it encompasses 26 agencies, including fema. if confirmed, she will take charge of homeland security department and fema and automatic rest of it. at a time that already feels like de ja vu. this was gabe gutierrez reporting nor nbc nightly news. >> this helmet camera shows the urgent mission the military in remote parts of puerto rico, children waiting for water. now people are getting so desperate, people say they are breaking into sealed off wells on the u.s. superfund list, sites so polluted the government considers their cleanup a priority, even though there is a clearly mark danger sign, people are willing to risk it, ripping off this fence. this man from chicago comes here at night to find water. >> we're drone wered in sweat,

we need to cool off some kind of way, there is no electricity. >> reporter: luis ortiz is filling up a well the e deemed as safe. >> this is the water i drink for me and my wife and my kids. aqua is vila, life. our main goal to to make sure public health is protected report. adding to the investigation, an investigation is under way in another town, for the puerto rico secretary of state says supplies were wasted, left out in heavy rain. >> and see it number of rats, i got angry. >> reporter: tonight only 17% of the island has power. making it hard to pump and treat water as this crisis deepens. nbc news, dorado, puerto rico. >> the end of gabe's piece there, 17% of the island is without power right now, that at number that's actually been going down over the last week or two. the proportion with electric

power has been dropping in puerto rico. as conditions there continues to deteriorate. who is in charge of getting it back on? good question. we have learned they've picked a mom and pop country out of montana and given them a sole source as to stand up to the power grid t. army core of engineers and fema are disavowing any involvement in this plan. today the army core of engineers announced they would stand up to the power grid. maybe they'll do it? who is running this operation? ethe beginning of last week, we highlighted the "new york times" reported, the state of the art hospitalship that's docked in puerto rico has the capacity to be seeing hundreds of patients simultaneously, with 800 staff on board eager and willing to help. at the time we reported that, at the beginning of last week that hospitalship was seeing seven patients. then it inched up to eight

patients. now more than a week later, there is still less than 40 people, even though they've got hundreds of beds. so a slight improvement, but even all this time later, still, hundreds of beds. hundreds of state of the art hospital beds, with state of the art highly trained medical person fell ready to take care of people, not being utilized. who ill that ship is docked if puerto rico and while conditions in hospitals on puerto rico are being described by doctors as quote post-apocalyptic. well, what's happened in puerto rico now 27 days on is not about a lack of resources, it's not about a lack of desire on the part of the american people or first responders to help. it is a failed effort in terms of who is running it in terms of organization, distribution, allocation of resources and the flow of information. you think those doctors and nurses on the usms comfort don't want to know where the patients who are who most need their

help,? nowhere to get that information. when president trump announced the nomination of kir ten nielsknee-- kirsten nielsen, he said what he is doing in puerto rico, he was dam right. the public relations company managing kirsten nielsen's nomination said her role has been vastly overstated. they told under the circumstances after she left the george w. bush white house, she took the lessons of katrina and put them to good use. if you'd like to see that full statement, we posted it on our website tonight for what it's worth. we'll be right back. so this one says ...

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. >> dabiq in syria, it's a town in syria, has 3,000 people, about 6 miles from the border, it's the site of the apocalypse. it's where the final decisive battle between muslims and non-believers is supposed to take. the terror group isis decided to put the idea of dabiq at the center of hits propaganda for a long too many. that's this video with this isis fighter carrying their black flag overlooking dabiq. it's why isis initially named their propaganda magazine starting in 2014 until october 2016. when isis did have a battle in dabiq and they lost. syrian rebels pushed isis out of

that village of dabiq i sis chose to put at the center of their propaganda. >> that made it awkward, they were named after a town they now lost. so they decided to take the easy route and rename their magazine, it's now yauld rumiyah, which means rome in arabic. there is no reason they will lose rolle and lose that title as well t. city of mosul is in iraq. it's about 250 miles north of bag, one of the largest cosmopolitan cities. it has the distinction of sitting smack in the middle of the tigris river. they felt isis in 2014, it was the largest, before isis took over, mosul was home to almost 2 million people. once isis got there. the population fell to more like a half million people got out of there. a month after isis took mosul

the head of the group, al baghdadi delivered he would kau call eight sermon, he declared eight caliphate. he declared himself on the calif and that was the first and only time baghdadi has appeared if public. this summer they led forces, back. they closed in, that historic mosque where baekd had given that speech, isis packed that mosque with explosiveexplosives destroyed it. they reduced it to rubble. but then rack force did retake mosul. then there is raqqa, it's a city on the banks o. euphrates river, it was first captured by syrian rebels in 2013 and 2014, isis captured it and declared it, its capital. raqqa was used as a command center for the middle east and west and a place where isis held

a lot of american hostages, american prisoners, including journalist james foley and others. today that coalition effort in and around raqqa is reporting more than 90% of raqqa is now free from isis. american forces claimed they have seized control of raqqa, which is a huge blow to isis. dabiq mosul, rack car, all major losses, all of very different types. but here's a couple of things to think about with this big announcement, they are not saying raqqa is completely free of isis, they're saying it is 90% free ofcy sis, that can be an important dozen, according to american times that covers isis, these types to have announcements have sometimes been oversold in the past. we will hear more from a comedian in a moment what she means by.

that keep in mind, isis just isn't in syria and iraq, it's popping up in one it rakes or another all over the world in places like yemen, in the philippines, in naiger, while this is a victory in raqqa, it's important to keep in mind that this, a, isn't the end and b still worth being cautious about how we talk about this stuff. joining mr. se a foreign correspondent for the "new york times" who covers isis and other terrorist groups, thanks for being here. >> thank you. >> you said sometimes announcements in the past have been oversol, what do you mean? >> however and over again, we've gotten used to officials getting up on the podium and announcing osama bin laden is dead and that, therefore, al qaeda has been decimated or destroyed or degraded, that mosul has fallen, that raqqa has fallen and therefore the caliphate is almost over. what these groups have shown us over and over again is that there is a built-in resilience.

these are people fighting for an idea that truly energizes them. even as they lose territory and leaders, we see that they keep on going p going, so you will never see me declaring the end of isis unless we go for a long time without seeing this group carrying out attacks. >> how important has it been to project force beyond the territory they hold? >> yes. >> that they actually hold territory? actually al qaeda never proclaimed it a state and claim a territory like isis did. how does that dynamic work with isis? >> to be sure the holding of this enormous territory at the height they held an area the size of the united kingdom. to be short, that was incredibly important and exciting to the people who wanted to join this cause, they were seeing it as the home on earth where they could lead this life to there interpretation of islam. yes, that's the case what isis says in it's own prop began

dark, they point to their origins in iraq, in the group that became isis, in 2011 when u.s. troops withdrew, they left behind around 700 fighters in 2011, three years later, 2014, we' at the declaration of the caliphate. i got an e-mail from the coalition a couple days ago, four days ago, i asked them, how many fighters remain? they said now even after the fall of mosul, and now possibly raqqa, they now still hold around 6,000 to 10,000 fighters in iraq and syria. so that's 8 to 14 times what it was when we left in 2011. that gives you a sense of their depth. >> if raqqa is lost to isis, if this 90% becomes 100% and becomes territory they have well and truly lost. >> yeah. >> is there an important symbolic factor? obviously, for american, it's important, because so many americans held hostage and prisoner and killed by isis were held in raqqa?

>> sure. it absolutely is an enormous symbolic blow to the group. there is their defacto capital. it's the place where all the foreign fighters flock to. so the majority of the brits, they went to raqqa. so in those regards, it's important t. group still holds around 4,000 square miles of territory. >> wow. >> that's almost the size of connecticut. >> ail after these battlefield losses. >> the desert, parts of the province, so they still hold land and in addition to that we know they have a presence in libya, afghanistan, yes, ma'am were, in the philippines, in west africa. just a couple days ago, i says telegram put out a video by a jihadist group we never heard of, a jihadist is allegedly in the congo in africa and asking isis supporters to come join

them there in the nothingle. >> in the congo. >> we have no way of determine, it's real. >> that gives you a sense of. >> territorial flexibility? >> exactly. >> remarkable notes of caution and and important stuff, thank you. we appreciate it. >> my pleasure. >> we'll be right back, stay with us. so we sent that sample off to ancestry. my ancestry dna results are that i am 26% nigerian. i am just trying to learn as much as i can about my culture. i put the gele on my head and i looked into the mirror and i was trying not to cry. because it's a hat, but it's like the most important hat i've ever owned. discover the story only your dna can tell. order your kit now at ancestrydna.com. the strikingly designed impolexus nx turbore. and hybrid. lease the 2017 nx turbo for $299 a month for 36 months.

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♪ ♪ ♪ for pure mystery, this one ranks right up there this year, it was june 29ing the "wall

street journal" reported on a long-time republican operative and trump supporter peter w. smith, shane harris of the journal reported that mr. smith during the presidential campaign had mounted his own independent campaign to obtain e-mails he believed were stolen from hillary clinton's server likely by russian hackers. peter smith tried to contact russian government hackers to see if they had hillary clinton's e-mails, he was not shy about it. mr. smith told the "journal"", we knew the people around these were probably around the russian government. he said several team mounting this operation that he wasn't just doing there on his own. he was in direct contact with members of the trump campaign, specifically naming michael flynn, at that time a senior adviser to donald trump. he claimed to be in touch with general flynn and his son mike flynn, jr., just a crazy story, right?

the first detailed reporting literally about collusion, about an american trying to contact russian government hackers, explicitly to collude with them torque work with them in their government's attack on our collection with the gel of helping donald trump. and this american admittedly was doing that to a reporter, braging about it. yeah, this thing. the other really strange thing about that story which was down in the ninth paragraph of the story and came as a shock when you got there was the detail that the american who had mitted to all that was no longer arrive, peter smith died ten days of rt roing his story the hometown paper would later report the 81-year-old mr. smith killed himself in a minnesota hole room, he was found with a bag over his head and helium attached and in a suicide note, mr. smith wrote there was all caps no foul play whatsoever,

all sell ifr inflicted. no party assisted or had knowledge as a fact. all caps the worker said he noticed smith pacing in the lobby area the morning that he died, quote, it seemed like he had a lot open his mind t. story of peter smith is just this strange mystery in the middle of what is a mysterious time, it's a profoundly sad story as well. it involves him dying in the middle of it. in the course of his quest to obtain dirt on hillary clinton from rug hackers, he enlisted other americans to help with technical aspects of that project. one was a cyber security analyst ma matttate. he said the time i got recruited to clurecruited

collude with the russians, as we discussed last night, he was interviewed by the house intelligence committee. in that interview, he reiterated to investigators, peter smith had ties to members of trump's inner circle, including mike flynn, also he believed peter smith may have been working as a research arm for the trump campaign so he knew that as of last night's show this guy that worked with peter smith had spoken with the house intelligence committee. now today, we learn from tasha bertrand at business insider that before that house intelligence interview, matt tait also got interviewed by robert mueller. so now the good news about that in terms of whether or not we're going to ever get to the bottom of this russia scandal this appears to be a concrete instance of a case where there doesn't seem to be a conflict between the mueller

investigation and the investigations being run by congress. in this case, matt tait's interview with the special counsel, robert mueller, didn't preclude him from being with the house intelligence committee. that's god news, in some cases, we have worried about each of these investigations stepping on even other's toes or messing up each other's investigatory flow. so it's good news, apartmently, both sides are proceeding as they wish. the bad news, is that the democrats on that committee that talked to matt tait, that i are screaming bloody murder right now about the investigation getting messed up. and it seems like nobody is listening to them on that right now. but that story is next.

visit esd.ny.gov. . >> so this isn't exactly tapped out in morse code, i do think it amounts to address signal. over the week the top democrat on the house senate committee adam schiff put this warning in the u.s. post. he warned there were growing calls from the white house and outside parties to halt the congressional investigations. >> that follows another democratic member of the same committee, eric swalwell who has now called on house speaker paul ryan to step in and put an end to republican efforts to slow down and shut down committee investigations into the russia matter, quote, paul ryan is the only opinion who can intervene, if he's not willing to, then

it's just going to continue. and the final report will have an asterisk on itch joining me is eric swalwell. he represents northern california, thanks for being here. you represent a very nice place in california, where my parents live and where i grew up. let me ask you about why you and congressman sclif issued these similar warnings, usually, to my mind, are you signaling that there is extental pressures on the investigations that your committee is doing that you think might be dangerous. >> russia infected our democracy this past election. we haven't kicked it yet. but we believe we still don't fully know how affected we are. and the best anecdote to what they did and can continue to do is unity, unity in our investigation, complete investigations, what we set the terms with the witnesses. they ton over documents, we make progress. disunity we fear if we have a majority report with a flat earth set of fines and our

report which would probably aileen i think more with what they're doing in a bipartisan wing in the senate that disunity would help the russians come at us again. they would exploit that to prove their narrative they didn't really attack us, we wouldn't be able to put reforms in place, i think 2018 could be even worse. >> one of the things i talked about earlier in the show, the example of what happened after hurricane katrina and the government failures in 2005, investigations in congress and in the white house in 2006. included this one report that was from the republicans in the house, democrats chose not to participate in it. they were worried it was going to be too partisan, turned out to be a blistering report by republican members about a republican administration designed to fix those problems so no katrina would ever happen again, it's a decade ago. at the time we felt we were an impossibly partisan country the democrats wouldn't sit on that community. i felt there was a ray of hope there for the kind of investigations you are involved in now. do you see any silver linings?

any republicans who have been real profiles in courage and willing to take a real party second country first approach to this? >> they have worked tremendously better than adam sclif was when devon nunez conducting his investigation. but the chairman issues subpoenas without working with the democrats that is destructive. despite that, we keep going forward. all of us believe that on the democratic side and two republicans that an independent investigation, like we did after september 11th, bipartisan appointed, independent experts on foreign policy, national security, that is the most comprehensive way we ogo at this and put in place the reforms we need to do. we did that after september 11th. we're safer in our country today because of bipartisan minds came together outside of congress, recognizing it was getting too politicized. i think with estill have to do that here. >> congressman swalwell, can you hold on for one second? i have something else to ask you that i bet you won't answer, but i'm going to try my best.

>> you bet. >> there he is. congressman eric swalwell joins us once again. stay with us. s. we are transforming jet engines into turbo powered safety inspectors. dairy cows into living, breathing, data centers. and though it seems like magic, it's not. it's people and technology working together. magic can't make digital transformation happen. but we can. from have you seenducer, anything like this? never like this. based on the terrifying best-seller. he's playing games with us. he's completely insane. the snowman. rated r.

joining us once again because he is here in new york and i wouldn't let him leave, it's congressman eric swalwell. thanks for joining us. >> of course. >> let me ask you about samantha power, susan rice. you have a couple of obama administration officials who have been brought before your committee to do questioning with members of the committee or with staff. and those have received less attention than some of the other people you have talked to or associated with the trump campaign and the trump administration.

why have those obama administration officials been called in? and how how have those interviews gone? >> part of our investigation is to understand the government response. that's important so that we can identify what to do next time the hacking and interference campaign occur. >> how the government responded. >> that's right. the energy and the curiosity i've seen from my republican colleagues has been to really focus on these wild, unproven unmasking claims and to have samantha power, believe it or not, she sat in the witness chair almost two times longer than jared kushner. a relevant precipient witness who was on the e-mail change, clinton, russia, private, confidential. he was allowed to walk out when he didn't want to conduct the interview anymore. >> so he was there for two hours and she was there for four? >> she exhausted them. stayed for the whole time. that's the problem here. we need unity in our approach here. exhaust all of the witnesses. clayce down all of the evidence. and then have a report that we all can find consensus on and

make the reform so this mess never happens again. >> is this how the majority is approaching this, should the democrats bail is in should you bail from the report and do your own thing? >> i think we should show the american people ago with gob to be dogged in our pursuit. if the republicans don't want to be a part of it, that's their decision. in they want to be a part of it, we can still 90 the unity. >> congressman eric swalwell. >> nice to have you here. thanks. we'll be right back. stay with us. when you have a cold

stuff happens. shut down cold symptoms fast with maximum strength alka seltzer plus liquid gels. what are you doing tomorrow

at 10:00 a.m. eastern time? if you're watching me right now, i'm guessing you are busy tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. eastern time. if you are busy at 10:00 a.m. eastern, then what is your dvr doing then? you might want to set it tonight for 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. attorney general jeff sessions has a very important date tomorrow, and it's going to be on tv. he is going back to the judiciary committee in the senate for the first time since his confirmation hearing in january. when he very famously told that committee under oath that he hadn't talked to any russians during the campaign, even though he had talked to russians during the campaign. at least twice. when those meetings got uncovered by reporters in march, the attorney general announced that he would recuse himself from matters having to do with the trump campaign or anything else having to do with the presidential campaign because of that misstatement in his confirmation hearing. that was his solution to the mess that he created. but you know what? senators don't like being lied to. and jeff sessions never apologized or really cleaned up that lie he told to his confirmation hearing.

well, tomorrow jeff sessions goes back before that same senate jik again. the one he lied too for what is supposed to be a routine oversight hearing. i have my doubts it will be a routine oversight hearing. and it starts tomorrow 10:00 a.m. eastern. i will watch that does it for us tonight. we'll see you again tomorrow. now it's time for the "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." good evening, lawrence. >> now i have my assignment at 10:00 a.m. eastern tomorrow, which i did not know until you just gave it to me. but that's why we have to get our homework assignments from rachel every night. >> you know from your time in the senate that if there is one thing that senators never forget, it's being lied to. >> uh-huh. >> especially by a witness under oath. and the way that jeff sessions handled, that he never apologized, never retracted it, never corrected the record. he just tried to make it better with this little recusal thing. i have a feeling that's going to be a very hot seat for him tomorrow. >> it is. it is. and like you, he will be