♪ it is 9:00 p.m. in egypt, and darkness has fallen on another bloody day on the streets of cairo and other major cities. dozens have been killed since this morning. that's in addition to the 600 confirmed killed wednesday. the military has fired live ammunition into crowds of pro-morsi supporters. the protesters now call themselves the anti-coup coalition and have dubbed today as the friday of rage. here's how one eyewitness describes it. >> what was new today is that the helicopters started to shoot us innocent people when we were walking in groups. if you have a brother or a sister who has been killed, on

wednesday they killed innocent people. my friends and relatives have been killed. we came today to say screaming to all the world that we are innocent people. we don't hold weapons. we are trying to get our votes. why are they killing us? >> you sound -- >> why are they killing my vote? >> the worst of the violence today is centered in cairo's ramsey square, where one field hospital says at least 80 are dead. right now a high-rise building is ablaze. nbc's richard engel filed this report from the square before sundown. >> reporter: after just about three hour, things here are definitely starting to turn. we've heard live gunshots. the protesters have started to light fires, to create smoke to try and protect themselves. they are expecting the security forces to come in here at any time. >> nbc news foreign correspondent ayman mohyeldin is in cairo where things are getting worse. ayman, what's going on? >> reporter: good evening, krystal. it's the third night of this

curfew that's been imposed here. the military maintaining a very strong presence on the street. for the most part the supporters of the muslim brotherhood have actually now withdrawn and ended most of their protests following calls by some of the leaders of that organization to respect the curfew and to head home. so there is an uneasy calm that is sething in. as you mentioned, there is this high rise that remains engulfed in flames. fire trucks are still working to try to contain that fire, but we still don't have an accurate estimate on the casualty figures from today. as you mentioned, according to the field hospital, volunteers near that area, more than 80 bodies have been recovered and taken there. they're expecting those numbers to go up as they get a better sense of what unfold ed today. the egyptian government has no qualms about what it is doing. it says they're engaged in a war on terrorism. the evidence to support that is

that supporters of the muslim brotherhood have been opening fire in public. they've been attacking government buildings, churches, and police stations. so there's no doubt from the eyes of the military and those who support the government this is what egypt is now fighting, a war on terror. but the muslim brotherhood and their supporters say they are engaged in peaceful demonstrations in an attempt to reverse what they call a coup. so it is a situation where there is no reconciliation on the horizon, but a lot of uncertainty in the days and weeks to come. >> all right, ayman mohyeldin in cairo. please stay safe. let's turn now to former u.s. ambassador to morocco mark ginsburg and mark saltz. ambassad ambassador, i wanted to start with you and take a step back for a second. ayman is reporting the government, the military is calling this part of the war on terrorism. what led them to take these actions in the first place, and do they feel like -- do you think they feel like they're accomplishing their goals and objectives here?

>> krystal, the bottom line is that it's hard for us to understand from the pictures that we're seeing, but the significant majority of egyptians have supported the military's decision to move against the muslim brotherhood demonstrators. ever since morsi was overthrown, as we saw from the vast outpouring of people who turned against him, there was a popular uprising against the muslim brotherhood. however, there's no doubt that most egyptians are shocked and dismayed at the violence that they're seeing in the streets and the number of casualties. there's no doubt it'll temper the support for the military. all the more reason why the military has to end this violence as quickly as possible. because it could shift public opinion against them. >> john, i wanted to get your perspective on that exact point from ambassador ginsburg. most people do remember that much of the crackdown under

mubarak rode at his legitimacy. it was cited as a key reason why he had to go. give us a military perspective here on what is the assessment and how bad does it get here where these similar crackdowns will be held against what is now the ruling egyptian military itself. >> well, we can go back further because at the time that mubarak took over from vice president to president, this ushered in a significant period of terrorism in egypt led by the current number two of al qaeda, who is the leader of the major terrorist group inside egypt. the question here is, will the muslim brotherhood and its more radical islamic supporters take to reverting to terrorism and violence rather than to continue a policy of nonviolence. and that will greatly depend on whether or not the military is

able to, in effect, find a way to end this crackdown as quickly as possible because remember, radical islamic politics plus vengeance equals terrorism inside any country. >> yeah, look, this has been the tactic of choice since, you know, we've seen a lot of crackdowns within this region. something we learned quickly in iraq is you don't want these types of images from a military hurting civilians whatsoever. for president government, or for the military to crack down this way, it's going to hurt their standing. not just in egypt but across the world. it's something we're very careful about in iraq over the years. some of the stuff that general petraeus brought into the counterinsurgency doctrine. >> ambassador, i continue to say the u.s. is really between a rock and a hard place. you were rather critical of the president. he spoke yesterday. you said this is merely a slap on the hand and that the president's remarks were the least symbolic gesture the

administration could do. i'm wondering what you think the president should have said. is there a right answer here? >> look, we have to understand that we have values. the united states stands for democracy and the use of nonviolence in protecting a person's right to express their opinions without there being retribution by military. that's what we need to stand for. the idea that somehow or other we're going to recourt our relationship with the general, who said a couple weeks ago in an interview with "the washington post," the united states, you are turned against us. we no longer respect you. so in effect, when the head of the military is saying we don't want your mediation, we don't want you to interfere in our internal affairs, there's only one thing for the president to do. so stand for our principles. that's why i felt that in effect just merely -- and symbolically. ending these military exercises. remember, it takes two to exercise. it takes two to dance.

the egyptian military most likely would not have been willing to participate in exercises this year, which is why i was critical. >> what should he have said? >> i think he should have suspended aid currently in the pipeline. he should have dispatched secretary kerry to meet with the leadership. the egyptian military needs those leaders to continue the facade that there's a face to this regime. >> john, you have a petition with 30,000 signatures against arming the syrian rebels. i totally respect that position. but i also feel like if we don't help the syrian rebels, then we are helping the government. what is your position against arming the rebels? >> that's real simple.

you see what's going on in egypt right now with who's on what side and so forth. in 2011 when i'm embedded in northern iraq can the iraqi army, which is a very pro shia ally or very close relationship with iran, when we're training this military and people like senator mccain are trying to extend us and want us to stay in iraq longer than that, we've had insurgents coming in from syria killing the iraqi army. there's no way to control the proliferation of weapons. in that war specifically, assad has a lot of support from the russians, hezbollah, and iran. giving small arms to the rebels only further sucks us into a stalemate conflict, and neither side is our friend. the enemy of our enemy in syria is still our enemy. so there's under no circumstances u.s. intervention whatsoever. >> all right. ambassador ginsburg and john, thank you both very much.

as eyes around the world continue to watch what's unfolding in egypt, up next, a new snowden leak back here is giving credence to criticism of america's spying program. "the cycle" has you covered coast to coast this friday, august 16th. with the spark miles card from capital one, bjorn earns unlimited rewards for his small business. take these bags to room 12 please. [ garth ] bjorn's small business earns double miles on every purchase every day. produce delivery. [ bjorn ] just put it on my spark card. [ garth ] why settle for less? ahh, oh! [ garth ] great businesses deserve unlimited rewards. here's your wake up call. [ male announcer ] get the spark business card from capital one and earn unlimited rewards. choose double miles or 2% cash back on every purchase every day. what's in your wallet? [ crows ] now where's the snooze button? [ crows ] ♪

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the leaks keep on coming. today "the washington post" published a secret internal audit revealing the nsa violated privacy rules thousands of times. that was just over a one-year period. this comes just a week after the president promised new steps to protect the public and make surveillance programs more

transparent. according to the documents obtained by "the post," the audit found more than 2700 violations. the agency claims that number is above average and blames a change in technology for the problems. okay. meanwhile, the white house so far has declined to comment on this newest report, but we're told they were aware of it prior to be its publication. you know who is ready to comment on it? our friend perry bacon, political editor for "the grio." when i look at these leaks from snowden and the national conversation and the nsa forced to say we're going to make changes, haven't really made that many changes, but they're forced to say we're going to make change, we're going to put our cards on the table, as well as 90% of the private contractors, people who do what edward snowden used to be, are going to be fired, surely we can't not say that edward snowden has had a massive impact in all this. i wonder if he's in russia somewhere kind of happy with the aftermath of his leaking.

>> whatever you think of edward snowden, he's started a conversation in the country. the leaks he provided led to -- have led to lots of newspaper articles. they led to a vote in congress in which the majority of the democrats in the house said they wanted to stop this nsa meta data program. snowden has certainly had impact. we'll never know what he's thinking every day. we're seeing this conversation continue to go. a lot of politicians are concerned about civil liberties, bringing this up. i think the president sort of tried to quiet these concerns last friday with his press conference, but i think this will continue to be an issue, where he's confronted with new details from snowden. you also see members of congress like diane feinstein, who at fist was like this program is great and defending it, who are now less equivocal about it. >> we know the president

addressed this in the press conference last friday. this need to be more transparent. let's take a listen. >> identi've taken steps to make they have strong oversight by all three branches of government and clear safeguards to prevent abuse and protect the rights of the american people. but given the history of abuse by governments, it's right to ask questions about surveillance, particularly as technology is reshaping every aspect of our lives. >> so perry, these new documents, i'm curious, how far in advance does the president and administration hear about these documents? we know now that they heard about them before the public did, but did they know about it during the time of the press conference or before that? >> it sounds like they did, or they didn't know when "the washington post" would publish the story about them. these audits about these violations have been known for quite a while. the danger here becomes you get 2700 violations according to these stories.

what you saw in those stories today from the post was that the head of the fisa court did not know about this until "the washington post" told him. diane feinstein, who leads a senate committee about this, did not know about them either, until "the post" broke the story. then she got the audit later on. the president's statement up to now has been congress and this court are overseeing these programs, but these stories are poking a hole in them, suggesting, no, congress and this court don't know much about what's going on. >> well, perry, it's more than poking a hole. this story as well as others recently have exposed government lying. in washington, they don't call it that. they call it misstatements or inoperative claims. the nsa and its officials have been lying, both on the record, under oath to congress, which if you're an old-fashioned kind of guy, is called perjury and it's a crime, as well as lying to the public, which while not illegal is not appreciative or constructive for the process. i want to get your response to a specific version of this in "the washington post" article, which i'll read to you. it says, nsa director keith b.

alexander has claimed, quote, we don't hold data on u.s. citizens. in the article government officials defended that claim with assertions that the agency's internal definition of data doesn't cover meta data like the not millions or billions but the trillions of american call records that the nsa is now known to have collected and stored since 2006. that's one tangible, you know, recorded lie that we know about. there are others because james clapper misled congress about aspects of the program. my question to you, perry, in washington, how does that aspect of this, the nsa's lies, affect the bipartisan pushback that we're seeing on the program? >> it's encouraging the pushback. you can tell members of congress -- two months ago when this program was exposed, president obama gave a press conference in which he was very defiant. basically said, this is not a scandal, people know about this. you can tell now -- i saw a

member from michigan who's a republican who led the fight to defund this nsa program. had a very blistering statement today about this, attacking this program, saying, republicans and democrats. he's implying the republican leadership along with the administration is complicit in misleading the public about this program. you're going to hear more comments like that. people suggesting i ining -- i' to let ari use the word lying. there's a credibility gap on this program right now. you're seeing a lot of democrats who are normally very pro-obama, very supportive be very skeptical about what the program does and what he's saying about the program as well. >> well, perry -- >> just briefly, perry, lying is charitable. it also looks like perjury. i'll use that word as well. >> when you're in front of congress, you're supposed to swear under oath. ari is right. those comments don't seem very truthful to me. >> perry, the president is going to do whatever he does for the remainder of his administration. but it strikes me this is going to be a big topic of conversation in the 2016

presidential race and what our next president is going to do to make changes to this program. in particular on the republican side of the ledger, we've already seen a real schism between what i'll call the chris christie republicans and the rand paul republicans about the nsa, about the program, and what sort of reform should be made. do these sorts of revelations continue to cause that divide and that rift within the republican party itself? >> krystal, i'd say there's a divide in both parties about this. hillary clinton announced this week she's going to give a speech about national security and striking the right balance next month in philadelphia. she's going to talk about these issues, too, i think. that'll be interesting to watch as well, because you definitely have a coalition of democrats who are not for this program. i'll be curious to see what she says and where she places herself since she was in the administration already. but the schism on the republican side is much larger for certain. you have rand paul and chris christie with a very vocal

argument that in some ways goes back to the bush administration in terms of people's views about how important is national security and how does it balance with privacy and civil liberties. i think you're going to have that debate throughout the next four years. >> perry bacon doesn't want to say the word lying but will say untruthful. interesting nuance there. thank you very much, my brother. >> all right. thanks, guys. up next, even the bushes love hillary. we're spinning as "the cycle" rolls on. [ female announcer ] birdhouse plans. nacho pans. glass on floors. daily chores. for the little mishaps you feel use neosporin to help you heal. it kills germs so you heal four days faster. neosporin. use with band-aid brand bandages.

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the news cycle begins with another strike against alex rodriguez. this one could mean he's out. cbs news is reporting that rodriguez implicated fellow slugger ryan braun and his own teammate francisco cervelli in the doping scandal linked to that miami clinic. he's tied to the leaking of

documents to yahoo! sports after he was tied to the clinic. a-rod is fighting a 211-game ban and continues to deny any wrongdoing. oscar pistorius will be formally indicted for premeditated murder on friday. additional charges are still possible. pistorius said he shot his girlfriend by mistake because he thought she was a nighttime intruder. this trial is expected to begin early next year. you think we're on edge about government spying? check out this next story from thailand. villagers there mistook a google mapping car for a sneaky government agent. the car, as you can see there, comes with a camera on top, which brings us all these real-time images when we search an address. apparently the villagers made the driver get out of the car and only let him go when he swore to a buddha statue he was not a spy. and the republican national committee today voted to ban cnn and nbc from carrying 2016 presidential debates. members voted this morning at their summer conference in

boston. it's, of course, in response to the forthcoming projects by both networks involving hillary clinton. while the rnc is refusing to approve or fund any republican debates, this time around, they haven't historically done so in the past either. pretty interesting. that's your news. it is time for the spin. now hillary takes us there. it wasn't exactly an endorsement, but a compliment, you could definitely say that. barbara bush, daughter of george w. bush, told "people" magazine hillary clinton should run in 2016. she stopped short of saying she'd vote for her, but said clinton is, quote, unbelievably accomplished. at a dark time in politics when it seems the parties can't even agree on what they disagree about, that goes a long way. we need more barbara bushes in the beltway. it was a pleasant surprise to hear from her. she's not the first one in her family to speak positively about

the clintons. george w. bush has come out and said she knows what it means to work under pressure. regardless of how you view the clintons or the bushes, both families know what public service is all about or what public service should be all about. you know, ultimately it should be about getting results. it should be about making people's lives better. unfortunately, we've lost sight of that in politics today. if you give someone a compliment or you serve someone on the opposite side of the political aisle, you're seen as weak. you're seen as someone that, you know, is a traitor, essentially. this comes from personal experience. i spent a lot of time on the campaign trail as a surrogate for my dad. i can't tell you how often i'd go places and i'd start talking about his record as, you know, governor and ambassador. many times i'd get stopped in my tracks. before you even finish, i'm never going to vote for your dad because he served a democratic president. he served barack obama. >> that's unbelievable. >> i will never forget those moments. i thought, what happened to public service? what happened to just, you know, doing good in this world?

so i actually think what barbara is saying is what more people should be saying. i compliment her on that. >> absolutely. as you're pointing out, barbara's ceo and founder of an organization called global health core that's doing a lot of good around the world. i'm not sure she self-identifies as a republican. i don't know, but she did also film a video for human rights campaign. she's in favor of gay marriage. so it's interesting, also, to see how politics changes over the generations. i think there is an inclination among our generation, frankly, a younger generation, to askew politics for public service in another direction. there's a sort of jaundiced view of our political system, which is frankly sad because we do need good people to step up and serve the country and politics still is critically important. but barbara and jenna seem to be taking this other path of serving and having an impact outside the political arena. >> even chelsea. >> we'll see about chelsea. she might have those political

ambitions. >> yeah, we'll see about chelsea. just to deal with hillary and what we learned about barbara, i think we see evidence of why hillary could be such a formidable candidate. in a world of turn-out elections where there are virtually no swing voters to compete over, here's a candidate who could actually pull some voters from the other side, some republican women who would want to be involved in the hillary movement. even if you're only talking about 1% or 2% of republican women switching and wanting to be part of this sort of hillary movement, this hillary ascension, that would be devastating for the republican party, which is already suffering with a massive gender gap. barack obama won women by over 10% in both his elections. it's been a problem since 1980 for the gop. you know, couple that with this current republican obsession with cracking down on abortion. you could see a lot of women saying, i'm done with this party, i want to move over, i want to try something different. you could also see women saying, hey, i'm going to punish the party for their stance on gun

control or on gun safety. i think there's a lot of reasons why you could see some women wanting to move over from the republican side to vote for hillary when nobody else is pulling people from the other side. one more thing. krystal, we've been talking about chris christie a lot. when abby talks about her father suffering for john working with obama, do you think that republicans are going to want to punish -- some are going to want to punish chris christie for chumming up with obama during sandy? i think that might be a bit of a pain to him in some primaries. >> he'll just yell at some union teachers and it'll be all good again. >> you know, when i was looking this over today, i saw the politico story about these rather basic comments. she said hillary is accomplished. it would be nice if she ran. it would be weird because she's working with the clinton global initiative as well as the michelle obama let's move campaign, it would be weird if she couldn't summon some sort of

nice, factual diplomatic statement. yet, these were at the top of the most red -- read items on politico. maybe it's just an obsession with all things hillary in 2016. what i look to be the hillary clinton experience, if you will, right now, is what is she asking people to think about and look to? last week she gave her first real domestic policy speech. the secretary of state couldn't talk about policy and couldn't go to conventions. this was sort of her return. a big spotlight, obviously, for her to tell us what we should be thinking about. what did she say? she said that there's a war on voting going on in this country. she said it's not something that we can just look at through false equivalency or through some model of bipartisanship. she said when you look at the facts, what you have are republicans at the local level and certain states trying to

keep people from exercising their right to vote and doing it in a way that is basically anti-poor, anti-populous, and in some cases racist. i thought that was very significant. that's where her campaign, if it is a campaign -- we don't know -- is beginning. it's on the substance and the policy. what she told us we should do about it is be vigilant, go after those states like north carolina. "washington post" has a strong editorial today saying north carolina wants to make it hard for you to vote if you're not a republican. pretty stinging editorial. what else should we do? renew the voting rights act and restore section four and five so we can have national supervision so we don't have racist crackdowns on voting. >> and politico is also reporting that a lot of republicans kind of off the record are dismayed at how they've doubled down on these voter i.d. policies and on these disenfranchisement policies, further alienating minorities, making their situation even worse for 2016 than it was in 2012. >> regardless, i think getting

back to barbara bush here, which is what we started talking about. somehow it goes back to republicans. it's easy to do that these days. regardless of how you view hillary clinton, she has an incredibly remarkable career. she's a woman, of course, which could make history. i think it's hard to not see an impressive woman there. i think that's what she was getting at. >> i don't think it's bashing republicans to try to have a factual discussion about them preventing the right to vote, which is what hillary clinton said last week we should take a look at. >> well, we will end it there. up next, are you addicted to your work? new work that may have you rethinking your relationship with your job. stick with us. [ female announcer ] made just a little sweeter...

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>> some my call me a workaholic, but if you love what you do, you're not technically a workaholic. apparently there's no single medical definition for it, but psychologists are working to differentiate between true addicts and those who are simply dedicated to their careers. that's good news for me since it's related to depression and anxiety. is there really such a thing as a workaholic? jordan, congratulations on getting the cover there. define what is a workaholic from somebody who's just all about their career. >> that's what psychologists have been trying to figure out for decades. we've had this term workaholic since it got popularized in the '70s. this psychologist, wayne oats,

who wrote a book called "confessions of a workaholic." ever since then, we've been trying to understand exactly, is this an illness? is it really a disorder? what kind of a disorder is it? at one point, like you said, one of the divisions, dividing lines that psychologists came up with were people who work compulsively who hear that voice in their head they have to keep wo working, have to keep working, but don't enjoy their job, were likely to suffer these problems. their families were found to suffer in a lot of ways. one study found that the children of workaholics scored 72% higher on measures of depression than the children of alcoholics, which is kind of really crazy if you think about it. now, you know, they keep

refining these ideas. you see them kind of trying to match the definition closer to the way they define other kind of addictions. they look for people who kind of get a high off of work, who need to do more and more work to get that effect and kind of have come downs or withdrawal from not working as much as they usually do. it's a really interesting field of research. it's growing and developing. >> well, and jordan, as a working mom, i am constantly filled with guilt already. your piece did nothing to help me with that. you just cited the stat, 72% higher on measures of depression, children with parents who are workaholics. so how do you know if -- i mean, am i destroying my children here by working hard? how do you know when you're crossings line and it's actually hurting your family? >> i think there's probably, you know -- that's such a hard question. >> yeah, it is. >> my sense is unfortunately

there is still a little bit of fuzziness here. a lot of this isn't as well defined as we'd like. it's hard to tell, but i think you kind of would start to notice personal relationships start to degenerate and such. look for the other problems that, again, tend to associate with other kinds of addictions. so if you notice that, you know, you're not talking to your kids as much as you used to or whatnot or they seem to kind of be -- you don't know what's going on in their lives, that's probably a sign that something's amiss. i say you, but i mean parents in general. >> interesting fact of the day. japan actually has a word for grueling work hours. they even recognize it as a basis for wrongful death suits. that was a really interesting fact in reading more about this. but it's interesting. if you enjoy your job as you write about, it's not considered an addiction. if you enjoy it and work hard, it's not considered an addiction. what if you enjoy your job and still have some of these pretty

scary side effects? is that something that should be concerning? like anxiety, weight gain, sleep problems. >> well, yeah, i think so. none of those are particularly pleasant things to have. if you're sweating from anxiety or feel like your blood pressure is going up, you should probably see a doctor, whatever the cause. so, yeah, if you're working yourself to that point and you love what you do, it's still probably worth seeing somebody, i think. >> i had a lot of weight gain over, like, the past nine months. maybe i should get that checked out. >> get that checked out. >> jordan, reading your article, you definitely think about yourself at work and your colleagues. when i look around "the cycle," krystal and abby are both definitely potential workaholics. when you see them in the office, you see them reading, studying. those are two people on the show i think could be workaholics. maybe me. i don't want to get into myself. there's definitely three people that could be workaholics.

>> shout out to l.a. shout out to toure in california. what i want to ask you is when you talk about the withdrawal symptoms, you know, you write about the '92 research paper that are said the enjoyment piece, which abby was just asking about, what are people having withdrawal from if they don't enjoy the work as a workaholic? >> again, you know, that work is like anything that you're using to sort of satisfy psychological needs. again, it's -- think about a drug or if you're alcoholic. after a while, the person who's drinking so much sr. doing it so sort of just stay level. they're doing it to kind of fulfill their need to drink, not because they enjoin drinking anymore. i think that's sort of the model of addiction that these psychologists are trying to move towards. you know, these are people who are feeling some kind of compulsion, some sort of need

that is not necessarily something that they like or want. it's there, and it's kind of something that needs to be satisfied. they can't help it. so that's what you're kind of coming down from. >> jordan, thank you. ari, i love you, and i'll get you back in the rant. up next, conspiracy theorists rejoice. the government is finally coming clean on area 51. >> so, regardless of what you may have read in the tabloids, there have never been any spacecraft recovered by our government. take my word for it. there's no area 51. there's no recovered spaceship. >> excuse me, mr. president. that's not entirely accurate. g. especially today, as people are looking for more low, and no calorie options. that's why on vending machines, we're making it easy for people to know how many calories are in their favorite beverages, before they choose. and we're offering more low calorie options,

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♪ (vo) purina cat chow. 50 years of feeding great relationships. the truth is now really out there. this is a story a lot of people are talking about today. for the first time, the government has confirmed the existence of area 51. according to recently declassified cia documents, the military air base is about 125 miles northwest of las vegas, and there were some strange going ons there during the '50s, '60s, and '70s. alas, no mention of aliens or downed ufos. ♪

joining us now to talk about what the government was up to is annie jacobson, investigative reporter. thrilled to have you here on a day like today. tell us what actually was going on at area 51. >> thanks for having me. you know, area 51 is really this kind of national enigma. i find it fascinating that the government finally released a document that said it exists, even though we all know it exists. it becomes news. it's so interesting to so many people. it was a base for spy planes. it was also a base for nuclear weapons testing. there was some reverse engineering of some soviet craft, the mig fighter jet. many things have gone on there, but now you have this new document, which is actually a map.

that has a lot of people talking today. >> well, annie, i got to tell you, this report for me raises far more questions than it answers. you reference the spy planes. it says, u-2 and later oxcart flights accounted for more than one half of all ufo reports during late '50s and '60s. what was the other half then? >> oh, yes. that's a great question, you know. also, keep in mind this document has actually been out for, you know, 10, 12 years now. it's that most of the document, or much of the document was redacted. now the cia has decided to unredact or rather reveal some of this information. that's a great point you talk about. the u-2 spy plane, which was flying in the 1950s at an extraordinary height. you know, three times higher than regular civilian aircraft. and people would see this flying out in the western united states. they would look up, and they would say, my god, i must have seen a ufo.

of course, it was an unidentified flying object because nobody knew about the u-2 because it was top secret. >> interesting. this might be the worst kept cia secret. i mean, as you said, we have known for quite awhile now this has existed. you wrote about this in your book two years ago. you can search area 51 on google maps. yet people still are convinced there is some sort of conspiracy involved. we'd love to believe in conspiracy. >> you know, you really have to ask yourself an important question here which is why did the government refuse to admit for decades, we're talking about 60 years that this base has existed, that no one in the u.s. government would actually acknowledge area 51 existed. i would talk to officials about it. be it at the pentagon or at cia headquarters and they could refer to the uu-2 spy plane tests going on at the ranch or

the facility or the test site. but no one would say area 51. and the fact that they made such a big deal over not saying this has created even more of a puzzle about this place. and i think now there's a whole new puzzle which is why on earth reveal this in 2013 so many years after the fact. >> i still smell conspiracy. >> i think that's an excellent question, annie. i appreciate you coming on here to spread the government's cover story. come on, we have know that there are alien spacecrafts there. >> look, people have so many opinions, it's why i find reporting about area 51 infinitely interesting. you've got national security. you've got espionage. you've got science, you've got technology. you used to have nuclear weapons. i mean, this is kind of the locus and the nexus of government secrets. i think it will be that way for many years to come. >> and annie, we're almost out of time. >> there's no alien spaceships

there? >> did you find in your research that the government did make any good plans to prepare for alien interaction? >> oh, my goodness, you have to read my book. there's so much in my book. it's 500 pages where i touch upon everything from conspiracy theorists to hoaxes to ufos. you know, it's great reading. it's a great subject. and i think people are just infinitely interested in it. >> that was a great plug. >> all right. annie jacobsen. up next, we have a toure tv special that is perfect for your summer friday. with the spark miles card from capital one, bjorn earns unlimited rewards for his small business. take these bags to room 12 please. [ garth ] bjorn's small business earns double miles on every purchase every day. produce delivery. [ bjorn ] just put it on my spark card. [ garth ] why settle for less? ahh, oh! [ garth ] great businesses deserve unlimited rewards. here's your wake up call. [ male announcer ] get the spark business card from capital one and earn unlimited rewards.

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you might remember that a couple of times i've been here that when i want to do something too boring even for the geeky nerd geeks on the rachel maddow show, they do it under two minutes in a short segment we call the ezra klein challenge. tomorrow the monthly job numbers will come out. everyone will freak out because they will be horrible. >> that's ezra klein known and loved by the msnpc faithful and one of the smartest people on tv. he is way smarter than me. let me show you how much smarter. this graph charts intelligence. see how the ezra bar is very, very tall? way at all taller than the average pesh. my bar is not nearly tall and the ari bar is really, really tiny. ezra recently wrote a piece perhaps a little overthought. i would let it go but it was about zombies.

like many people, ezra and i saw "world war z," brad pitt's awesome summer blockbuster where they move very, very fast. they sprint and when they bite you, within ten seconds you turn into a relentless sprinting zombie, a fundamental break with zom beale history. . >> wait, wait, wait. >> now, i don't watch the walking dead because slow zombies don't scare me. they're too easy to escape. come on, they're drunk and stumbling. anyone could run away from that. ezra wrote a piece don't be afraid of fast zombies arguing that the zombies in "world war

z" recognize too fast to be scary because fast zombies are far more likely to kill everything in sight its speed limits its effectiveness. i was like what the what? on the matter of zombies, ezra is a conservative. as in mostings this, conservatives are wrong. horror movie conservatives want things to be traditional. they look at george romero's "night of the living dead," like it's the zombie constitution, any shift away from the strict literal original position of the constitution is wrong and a step toward the ruin nation of everything. horror movie liberals like political liberals embrace change and are comfortable with welcoming in new people and new ideas. ezra should embrace fast zom biz because it's a progressive thing to do and an they're way, way scarier. i can prove it in under two minutes. producers please put two minutes on the clock. is it there? all right. let's go. now, if you're being chased by

something that wants only to kill you and captain be killed and it's way, way faster than you, then you have no freaking chance. ezra rightly says if you're on a plane with a fast zombie, the plane will not land because one zombie would transform the whole plane and everyone would die in the crash because they can't fly planes. unless you can go to another planet or a space station, earth is the equivalent of that plane and everyone on it will be killed by the super fast predatory zombies, way scarier than zombies who drag so slowly you have time to reload a musket before they get close. stop the clock. mad time to spare. i hope ezra will come around on this important issue. you don't waste time getting prepared for the inevitable zombie apocalypse because if they're fast, we have no chance. joe and reed, give up all hope. >> listen, toure, i am a walking dead fan. the problem, it's not the speed of the zombie. it's when the they corner y