>> absolutely. i completely agree. it really has to be -- and i certainly welcome everything thatas been done between the united states and china in the last few months. especially since the second term of president obama. it's actually very, very good news. >> kumi from green peace international. christina fegarus from the u.n. framework convention on climate change and ken salazar, thank you all. that is all for this evening. the "rachel maddow" show starts now. >> thanks. thanks for staying with us. something really funny is happening in washington right now. i think it is in the category of unintentionally funny. but it is, nevertheless, funny. and not funny like hmmm, funny, strange. but rather, ha ha, i can't believe this is happening. here's what is happening. i think we can put it in the corner of the screen. there we go. so this is what it looks like, what's happening in washington right now. here's what it means. do you remember wendy davis?

wendy davis is a democratic state senator from ft. worth, texas. she is expected next month to announce she is running for governor of texas. and, of course, it is an uphill battle for any democrat to wage a statewide political fight in texas, even now as texas is trending more purple and democrats are making strong efforts there. it's going to be tough for her to win that race. the reason that wendy davis is thought to have a better chance than any other democrat in texas is in part because of her national profile. and wendy davis' national profile was built, largely, on this. these are her awesome pinkish mizuno sneakers, which apparently started selling very, very well in online retail sales after wendy davis wore them for 13 hours, while she held court and filibustered in the texas state legislature. the rules in texas for this kind of thing are really strict. not only can you not sit down and not stop talking, you can't lean on anything. you can't touch your desk which you're standing right next to.

nobody else can touch you. you cannot have anything to eat. you cannot have anything to drink, meaning you can't have a sip of water. but still, senator wendy davis stood there for 13 hours and in so doing, she won. what she did worked. and she wasn't just standing there talking for 13 straight hours, because she had 13 hours of stuff she wanted to get off her chest. she was doing a specific tactical thing. she was trying to run out the clock so texas republicans couldn't take the vote they wanted to take on their new radical anti-abortion bill. so very specific tactical goal. and she was talking for a reason. if the republicans couldn't come up with some procedural way to get her to stop talking before the clock struck midnight, they wouldn't get to take their vote. and then that bill would not pass and it would not become law. and she did it. she won.

they tried to stop her from talking. they pulled out of a hat every procedural rabbit that they had. but in the end, the texas lieutenant governor, republican david dewhurst, seemingly got kind of confused, and disoriented, and it was loud and he maybe wasn't watching the clock and he didn't maybe remember what exactly had to be done. and so there was chaos, and there was very little time left, and by the time anybody actually -- geez, it's midnight! whoa, it worked. wendy davis talked long enough that they could not take that vote. and so wendy davis is not only famous in texas. wendy davis is famous across the country. and wendy davis is conceivably a viable candidate as a democrat for governor of the great state of texas. now, in the long run, in the end, texas republicans spent a ton of taxpayer money to call a whole new special session of the legislature, and they reintroduced the anti-abortion bill, and they started the clock over again. and finally, they were able to get it passed in a separate session. but she stopped them in that

instance. her talking for 13 hours had a practical effect. it had a point. as opposed to what happened today in washington. which actually is kind of hilarious. we've got a live shot of what's going on on the senate floor, different senators taking the floor. this is actually democratic senator, dick durbin. most of the night tonight, most of the day, has been republican senator ted cruz of texas who sometime between 2:00 and 3:00 this afternoon took to the senate floor and intoned with great somber, self importance that he was taking over the floor of the united states senate. that he would speak until he could no longer stand. to block health reform. now, didn't health reform already pass? yes. health reform passed in 2010. wasn't it already signed into law? yes, like roughly 30 seconds after it passed. didn't it already pass at the supreme court after a big constitutional challenge? yes, it passed that challenge last summer. wasn't there an election thereafter between one side, the democrats, who said they would -- one side, the republicans, who said they would repeal it, and one side the

democrats, who said they would keep it, and the side that said they would keep it, the democrats, won that presidential election by a lot? yes. and didn't the democrats pick up seats in both houses of congress? yes, the democrats picked up seats. so will ted cruz talking end health reform today? no. not in any grand sense. not even in any tiny procedural sense. not even a delaying sense. not even in i'm going to shave some bits off sense. it's going to have no effect. here's the thing about a filibuster. this is being described as a filibuster. it is not a filibuster. it is as much a filibuster as the song 99 bottles of beer on the wall is a catchy disco tune. if what ted cruz is doing is a filibuster, whether or not there could be a vote in the senate, some action in the senate on this issue he cares about would depend on whether or not ted cruz is still talking. in this case, no, that is not what's happening. there is nothing tactical about this.

there is going to be a vote in the senate tomorrow on funding the government, including health reform. it's going to happen around lunch time, whether or not ted cruz is talking. what he's doing is just filling up the time between now and then with his talking. in a way that has no legislative consequence whatsoever. no matter what happens. he says he's going to speak until he cannot stand! if he couldn't stand after another five minutes, or if he could still be standing at dawn, or if he stops standing right now, it would have no effect on what is going to happen next in the senate. it is not a tactical thing he is doing. so why is he doing it? you tell me. ♪ 99 bottles of beer on the wall ♪ i mean, it's fun, but -- i think the idea is that ted cruz thinks people will believe that what he's doing is functional. that he is putting himself through a great personal sacrifice, ala mr. smith goes to washington in order to accomplish something against

health reform. if that's what he's thinking people might misunderstand about what he's doing, miss own side is making sure people actually know what's going on here. one republican leadership source in congress musing out loud to abc news today saying that ted cruz should probably be expected to only go on long enough today to reach the prime time audience on the fox news channel. a senior house republican aide telling talking points memo, quote, i don't know how the senator makes it down a flight of stairs, because he is completely incapable of thinking one step ahead. this comes on the heels of an unnamed adviser to republican senator john mccain, telling "gq" magazine that senator mccain, quote, f'ing hates ted cruz, although he fully spelled out the word that i am suggesting here by saying f'ing. another house aide telling the national review online that, quote, nancy pelosi is more well liked around here than ted cruz is. meaning than ted cruz is among republicans.

beyond his own side, calling his bluff, and laughing at him openly and essentially dumping their chamber pots out their windows on to his head as he does this, his own side is very unsubtly leaking negative stories about him to the press. chris wallace on fox news sunday admitting this weekend when it became known he had had booked ted cruz, he was flooded with unsolicited opo, unsolicited opposition research from other republicans who wanted him to use those negative stories about ted cruz against ted cruz during the interview on fox. today with senator cruz pretending to filibuster while having no practical effect, except drawing attention to himself, another republican -- well, republican sourced but theoretically anonymous tip to the washington newspaper roll call explained how at the senate campaign committee for the republican party ted cruz technically has a job to do there, but he's not bothering to do that job. quote, senator ted cruz has not been engaged in his role as vice

chairman of the national republican senatorial committee, according to multiple sources familiar with gop politics. so this is republicans feeding the press negative ted cruz stories. while also talking smack about him. more or less to his face. today when democratic and republican senators met for their respective caucus meetings on capitol hill, senator claire mccaskill tweeted that she was, quote, in our democratic caucus meeting, but true confession, i would rather have a diet coke and some popcorn and watch the show that must be going on in the republicans' caucus today. it is fascinating to watch. it is entertaining, sort of, to see the way that republicans are going after each other right now. but what's happening right now and tonight in washington is also sort of mystifying. because, again, technically, it has no point. i mean, it does not change anything about what is going to happen.

it is not going to get them what they say they want. it is not going to lead to anything different happening in the senate that might otherwise be happening in the senate. it's not going to lead to a temporary victory that might be overturned later. it does not stall for a second what is going to happen anyway. it is it okay if you're not actually listening to what's happening on the senate floor, because it doesn't matter in the technical sense. but there ted cruz has been anyway, in a way that is driving a huge, angry, visible wedge down the middle of his party. disgusting and infuriating and exasperating a lot of people on his own side, expressing that publicly, whenever a microphone gets near them. republicans are just trashing each other any time a reporter asks. and for what? part of the explanation may be they're getting so carried away they cannot stop. one side of that today was maybe early on in the pointless floor speech from senator cruz when he started calling people who disagreed with him on this

subject nazi appeasers. >> you go to the 1940s. nazi, germany. look, we saw in britain nevil chamberlain who told the british people except the nazis, yes, they'll dominate the continent of europe. but that's not our problem. let's appease them. why? we can't possibly stand against them. and in america, there were voices that listened to that. i suspect those same pundits who say it can't be done, if it had been in the 1940s, we would have been listening to them. >> wouldn't you have decided you are standing against the nazis and everybody else who is against you is with the nazis, helping the nazis or maybe they're a nazi too? it's hard at that point once you've gone over sort of the nazi hurdle, hard to say oh, you know what, my bad, this doesn't actually make sense what i'm doing. now if the nazis are not your thing, ted cruz's friend in the senate on this, mike lee of utah, decided he would go with

not world war ii as his analogy, he would instead go with the war against the british, as in the war by which we became a country. so he and ted cruz, they're like the american colonists, and everybody who is against them is like king george iii. british, bad. can't you see it? can't you see the parallel? >> i would remind your listeners out there that the revolutionary war was fought and won with the support from what was initially a minority within a minority of americans. but a select few knew that it was worth fighting. and eventually, they persuaded others to go along, and eventually they won. this is one of those moments. >> the health insurance is coming, the health insurance is coming! ah! and the direct mail fleeced the base fund-raising groups on the right, they are just egging this whole thing on. the e-mail blast today from the senate conservatives fund had this bolded tag line, the ultimate betrayal. turns out the ultimate betrayal

in world history is not about, like, jesus and judas. it's about mitch mcconnell and john cornen, the ultimate betrayal. because they do not stand with ted cruz in this thing he is doing which is really not a filibuster, that won't change anything at all. mitch mcconnell is a turncoat. turncoats who have surrendered to barack obama! who is, like caesar here, i guess, maybe. when you have worked yourself up into such a froth that your enemies are the nazis and judas and the british empire circus of 1776, that makes it i think hard to admit that what you are doing makes no sense and that maybe it is time to think about how you're going to explain what you're going to do next. and so pointlessly not only has today happened, but it is still happening right now. do we just chock this up to these guys getting their ya-yas out or does this have any substantive consequence at all? senator ted cruz lecturing his colleagues how to achieve actual

change during his pretend filibuster today was witnessed in part by producer casey hunt. thank you for being here. >> thanks, rachel. >> so in terms of timing, what's going on in the senate, how long has it been going on and what happens next? >> well, this fight that cruz has been waging has been going on for months behind the scenes. and so what you're seeing now is sort of the symbolic culmination of all of these efforts that he, along with several other conservative groups have been pushing. as far as timing now this week in the context of a government shutdown, cruz sort of has a decision to make about how long he's going to drag this out. you're right in that he's limited in the tactics he has. he can only push this off so long. the votes are going to happen. but if he avails himself of every procedural means necessary, the votes won't be until sunday night here in the senate. and that puts a real squeeze on how speaker john boehner, who would then have to turn around and on monday september 30th pass a bill to keep the government from shutting down, or face the consequences of all

of that. so if cruz decides to yield back or to be okay with yielding back some of the time that republicans will have to keep debating this, they could potentially accelerate that time line and vote as early as friday, saving them a couple of extra days. and other republicans, leadership, mitch mcconnell has indicated he would go along with that strategy. they're just waiting on cruz and anyone else who might also go along with his objections. >> when we have seen people take the floor today, we have seen his allies, people like mike lee, some expected republicans jumping up there. that presumably gives senator cruz a little time to rest. we're also now seeing some democratic senators get up and address what they see as the substantive positives of obamacare and why he's wrong. every time that happens, does that essentially elongate what's going on here, because it gives him a chance to rest his feet? >> in some ways it gives him a chance to rest his feet. but we've heard that, you know, he was going to plan to be on the floor for potentially up to 20 hours. they've not given us a commitment one way or the other.

so i think what you might be seeing is democrats kind of coming up and trying to take a little bit of the limelight away. one of the things -- one of the mistakes democrats have made in the course of this law is not communicating well enough what its benefits might be. and you saw president obama even today struggling to -- or starting to try to, with the explainer-in-chief, quote, unquote, what this health care law would do. and by letting cruz go unanswered on the senate floor, giving republicans another opportunity to explain to people why they think this law is a good idea, without actually answering those criticisms. >> casey, i was looking today at what needs to happen in order to keep the government funded, keep the government going. it seems to me like it's kind of a choose your own adventure book, where you get to the end of each little individual mini chapter, right, and you've got a choice to make, a decision to make, something needs to happen at the end of each one of those chapters. and in about 99 out of 100 cases, we end up with a government shut down.

there is this one very narrow path of all of the different things that need to happen by specific times, by unlikely protagonists, in order to actually stay open, and i ended up -- the closer i looked today, i ended up feeling more and more like we are likely to have a government shutdown, just because it's unlikely they'll be able to keep it going, with or without ted cruz blowing hot air on the senate floor. do you agree with that or do you think it's unlikely? >> there is a sense here that it's more likely to happen this time than it has been in other recent times. but you have to remember that this sort of shutdown to almost debacle has happened over and over again in recent years. they keep going right up to this cliff and then finding that one narrow path. and figuring out a way to pull us back from the brink. and in this particular case, you're starting to see particularly republicans in the house talk more about the upcoming fight over the debt ceiling. and john boehner has sort of talked about it that way all the way along, viewed the debt ceiling as a better place to fight with the obama

administration on fiscal priorities, as opposed to funding the government, instead of threatening a government shutdown. but at this point, it's still anybody's guess if they're going to take it right up to the brink. and to a certain extent, it still depends on what cruz does decide to do, because some of this depends on is boehner going to have one day or three days to decide how he's going to handle it. >> nbc news political reporter and producer casey hunt, thank you for helping us cover the nonfilibuster. appreciate your time. >> thanks, rachel. all right. president obama addressed the united nations today. yes, engaging peacefully with the rest of the planet. cue conservative freakout! that's coming up. stay with us. with the spark miles card from capital one,

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like that in your family? this might be a good night to just call and check up on him, just to see if he's okay. because today this happened. the state department said that secretary of state john kerry will tomorrow sign a treaty at the united nations. now, if that does not sound like it pore tends the apocalypse, that is because you are not you, your uncle, who watches fox news all day. the black helicopters coming for us to take our guns. the treaty john kerry is expected to sign tomorrow on behalf of the u.s. government is called the u.n. arms trade treaty. the aim of the treaty is to bring to an end the supply of weapons to countries where they would be used to commit or facilitate genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or other serious human rights violations. in other words, if you're a country selling weapons to other countries, consider what those weapons are going to be used for. it aims to stop the mass illegal sales of guns, which, of course, feed a global black market in weapons, which, of course, is a very handy thing for terrorist groups. this treaty applies to battle tanks, armored combat vehicles,

large caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles and missile launchers and small arms and light weapons. so it's not weapons of mass destruction. it's everything else up to and including tanks. so the treaty is only about 17 pages long. it has this pretty direct goal of trying to stop mass, international weapon sales to terrorists and genocidal maniacs. it's not considered to be a particularly controversial thing. when the u.n. voted on it earlier this year, only three countries voted no. and they were kind of the usual suspects. it was syria, iran and north korea who voted no. the united states was a yes vote back in april. but that yes vote was only the first step. the treaty also needs to be signed by our president or our secretary of state. then it needs to be ratified by the senate, and it needs a two-thirds majority to pass, 67 votes. so after secretary of state john kerry signs it tomorrow, it will head to the senate. and then what do you think will happen there? what do you think specifically

the reaction is going to be from the fox news corner of our republican politics? >> it's an attack on our constitutional rights. the second amendment is constantly under attack. we're looking for a global gun control limitations, are you kidding me? >> this u.n. arms treaty is really raising some eyebrows. gun rights advocates are fearing that it is really going to impinge on their second amendment rights. >> this is kind of like the perfect storm for conservatives, gun control and the united nations. >> it really is the moment when you wake up screaming in horror. >> you wake up screaming in horror. because of the treaty that says countries shouldn't sell armored vehicles to genocidal maniacs. when the u.n. voted on the treaty in the spring, senator ted cruz tweeted that this treaty was an international gun regulation plan, plain and

simple. it must never be ratified. rand paul sent out a fund raising e-mail. u.n. bureaucrats will stop at nothing to confiscate firearms owned by private citizens by you. send me money, $250 or even just $35. send rand paul $35 and he will make sure the u.n. does not fly to your house in black helicopters to put micro chips in your molars and steal your guns. oklahoma senator james inhofe introduced an amendment preventing the united states from entering into this treaty. that amendment passed back in march with overwhelming republican support. today after reuters broke the story that secretary of state john kerry would, in fact, sign this treaty over the objections of rand paul's fund-raising letter, senator inhofe wrote a letter to the secretary of state, vowing he will personally guarantee the failure of this treaty about not selling guns to people who commit genocide. the nra basically has a beat reporter who is assigned specifically to the u.n. is stealing your guns story. today the nra tweeted about the treaty as soon as the state

department put out word about it, which means that very, very, very soon your uncle, who watches fox news all day, is probably going to start getting e-mails telling him that the united nations has commenced their plan to come for him to take his guns, and therefore he should send rand paul money. for the record, the treaty will not require any changes in u.s. law or policy. but whatever. you know, if you have this uncle who watches fox news all day, just call tonight. tell him you love him. he is going to be really upset soon if he isn't already. [ male announcer ] this is claira. to prove to you that aleve is the better choice for her, she's agreed to give it up. that's today? [ male announcer ] we'll be with her all day to see how it goes. [ claira ] after the deliveries, i was okay. now the ciabatta is done and the pain is starting again. more pills? seriously? seriously. [ groans ] all these stops to take more pills can be a pain. can i get my aleve back? ♪ for my pain, i want my aleve.

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it's not a tough competition. but the funniest moment in history of political action committees has maybe just been achieved in today's news. it guest stars an unwitting senator rand paul. i think he was unwitting in this. i'm sure he hopes we all believe he was unwitting in this. that story is coming up. stay with us. [ male announcer ] campbell's homestyle.

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i always said one day i'd go to china, just never thought it'd be today. anncr: we're giving away a trip every day. download the expedia app and your next trip could be on us. expedia, find yours. so president obama's speech today at the u.n. was the second speech of the day. the first one was given by the country that by tradition goes first at these things, which is brazil. a little awkward, because brazil and the united states right now are having a fight. there was supposed to be a big official state dinner in washington next month with president obama hosting the president of the brazil. state dinners are a rare thing, the biggest country that our country offers any other visiting head of state. but last week brazil called to say they didn't want it anymore. no, we're not coming to the state dinner, thank you very much. they haven't even rescheduled or anything.

it is just cancelled. the reason brazil is mad at us is because of recent disclosures that we are close allies and friends with brazil, our intelligence agencies have been spying on them. and not just spying on brazil in general, but even specifically spying on their president's e-mails. so, yeah, brazil is mad at us. and this morning, it was brazil's president giving her speech upgrading the united states for this totally unacceptable affront to the principles that should government relations between countries, followed immediately by the speech from president obama. so that was an awkward start to the day. it's also a reminder, though, of the breadth of stuff that was leaked by edward snowden, the former nsa contractor now holed up in russia after having delivered thousands of classified documents of various forms of american spying to "the washington post" and the "guardian." he leaked about the u.s. spying on brazil, china, on you and me, and how the whole architecture of american telecom is tapped or

tapable by u.s. intelligence agencies. and whatever you think about those leaks and the guy who did the leaking, it is kind of amazing that this guy who is not particularly accomplished in the intelligence world, didn't have any title of any consequence, hadn't really risen through the ranks very far at all, skipped around from job to job and contractor to contractor. this guy who did all of this while he was still in his 20s. he nevertheless had access to that huge breadth, that huge array of really sensitive material. part of the reason he had access to that level of material was because he had a top-secret security clearance. and you know what? now in retrospect maybe it seems like maybe he shouldn't have had that clearance. one of the things he admitted to after he started leaking, he took his last job specifically to get access to more classified information, which he planned to hoard and then leak. so he's getting jobs in order to violent security and leak that stuff. the idea of a background check, a top-secret security clearance

background check is not just to figure out who you are and if your resume checks out. it's to find out if you are trustworthy, if you're going to pose any kind of security risk with this information you're about to be trusted with. well, when he was being checked out for his clearance, were there any signs of his background, did anything pop up among his character references that suggests there is going to be a security problem there? we will never know that, because that check did not happen. the top secret security clearance failed to talk to any of his co-workers, failed to check any of the references, failed to interview any of his neighbors from the time when he lived abroad. failed to look into a trip he took to india, which he did not report at all. nbc's michael isikoff obtained a official review of his background check, and it appears that basically the only people they talked to in checking out his background beyond him himself for his own top-secret security clearance background check, were his mom and his girlfriend. and wouldn't you know, they think he's awesome.

no problems. he's dreamy. turns out the same company that was responsible for doing that brilliant background check was also responsible for this guy's background check. the fact that aaron alexis had a secret level security clearance is absolutely critical to how he had a job with the navy contractor, and thereby got access to the washington navy yard where he killed 12 people last week. and now over the last 24 hours, we are learning that aaron alexis passed that background check and got that security clearance in a way that is starting to look super, super sketchy. and thinking about this kind of background check, this kind of security clearance issue, what are the kinds of things you would think would trip up that process, send up a red flag, might interfere with you getting that clearance? we know he had fairly serious mental health issues, getting treatment for mental health problems at the v.a. he admitted to police when they

arrested him in seattle he had been in a rage-fueled blackout. his family corroborated his problems that ended up in the police report, them describing his struggles with mental illness. so maybe that would pop up in a background check? it is in the police report. apparently not. we also know specifically he was having paranoid delusions and hearing voices. and it's one thing if that's your own private idaho and keeping that to yourself. but in this case, again, he disclosed that to police and it ended up in another police report. this one in rhode island, where police officers in their written and duly filed report on him described in great deal the paranoid delusions and voices that he was hearing. he described himself's to those same police officers as a navy contractor. and the police not only wrote that down, too, they turned that whole police report over to the navy, to let the navy know this hearing voices thing was going on with their contractor, who had access to navy facilities. did that ping anything for the background check?

apparently not. if you're being checked out for a security clearance and you're getting an official background check, even if they check nothing else, you think they're going to check your criminal record, right, your arrest record? well, yeah, it turns out in a way, after the shootings at the navy yard last week, turns out the navy looked into what had happened in the case of aaron alexis. and the background checks that cleared him for security clearance. this apparently insane shooter who got a security clearance, how did that happen? the navy released the results of that review late yesterday and in what they released, we learned that the shooter's fingerprints pinged in the databases to show one of the times he was arrested. the first of two times he was arrested on gun charges. this is the time he used a handgun to shoot out the tires of a car that belonged to a construction worker who he says he argued with. he did not report that arrest or that incident on his background check form, which, itself, is lying on your background check,

which, itself, should be a red flag and should raise a problem. but apparently that was not seen as a problem. that arrest pinged anyway, just because of his fingerprints. and when the people doing the background check found out about it, they decided they would put a shine on it for him so it wouldn't cause any problems with his security clearance, the security clearance that got him into the navy yard where he killed 12 people. the background check, which was reported to the navy, quote, left out the gun and its description of that incident where he shot out that guy's tires, saying instead that aaron alexis had just deflated the man's tires. yeah, he did technically deflate them. but he deflated them by shooting them out with a handgun. the people doing the background check knew that. but they did not report it. why would you excise that from this guy's record? why would you drop the gun part of that, if you are doing a background check on somebody for a security clearance? why is the him shooting something part of this worth excluding from his background check, especially if you're also going to miss his mental health issues and him hearing voices and his other arrests and navy misconduct? they upgraded him shooting out

the dude's tires to him deflating the tires, which, yeah, does sound better. so, yeah, he passed his background check, and yeah, he got his security clearance and, yeah, we know how that ended last week. there's no reason to believe that the company doing the background check had any idea what aaron alexis was going to go on to do. there is no reason to believe they were in cahoots with him in pulling off this massacre at the navy yard. there is, however, reason to believe that the company who did his background check did a terrible job. and on edward snowden's background check, also a terrible job. and it was the same company. when it became clear that both of those background checks were done by the same company, the "washington post" went out and found some former employees of that company who wanted to talk about what it was like to work there. quote, some former employees describe an environment where people went weeks without seeing their bosses and handled sensitive documents with no supervision in their home offices and occasionally at starbucks. the goal at all times, volume. former employees say bosses simply trusted the employees to

do the work in the right way with little oversight. quote, i could go weeks and weeks and not see a single co-worker so there is no way they could see what you're doing, said one former investigator. in terms of this highly sensitive, confidential information they're dealing with for people's security clearances, quote, people were leaving their laptops at starbucks, said one former investigator. people were leaving cases on top of their cars, information blowing off in the wind. we had a lady who left her files at chuck e. cheese with her kids. the firm is called usis. and they are now under federal criminal investigation into whether or not they have been lying about the thoroughness of their work on people's background checks. according to nbc's michael isikoff, the grand jury in this case is specifically looking into allegations that the company pressured its employees to submit bogus reports in order to keep up with the volume of their work. overall, more than 20 investigators have pled guilty or have been convicted of falsifying background check reports since 2006. in one case, an investigator claimed to have interviewed a

person who had been dead for more than a decade. oh, yeah, i definitely talked to that guy. said everything was fine. that guy has been dead for over a decade. these contractors are the ones who do all the legwork, all the background checks, to see if you get granted a security clearance by the u.s. government. the specific contractor company who did the background checks for edward snowden and navy yard shooter doesn't have a monopoly doing this work, but almost. they did over $300 million worth of this type of business for the federal government last year. and i'm sure that is great business for them. they're owned by a private equity firm now. do you remember bane private equity? it's not bane, but it's another firm like bane. it's called providence is the private equity firm that owns them. but basically, this firm is guaranteed a huge revenue stream, because they are handling 45% of all contracted background checks for the federal government. this one firm, which appears to be terrible at what they do. the idea that core government functions like, say, figuring out who should get access to top-secret information.

the idea that core government functions can be done better for profit by the lowest bidder. that has been kind of a bipartisan mania in washington for the last couple of decades. contracting stuff out that you think would be done by the government or by the military itself, it did get very famous during the iraq war with halliburton and the no-bid contracts and all that. but this stuff was not born in the iraq war. this stuff was the hallmark of the clinton administration before that, and the george h.w. bush administration before that. usis, this background checks company, it was created in 1996, during the clinton administration, specifically so somebody could make a profit doing work that before then had been done by the government itself. and i'm sure the profit part of it has been a lot of fun. but the core government function there supposedly taking responsibility for is apparently not really happening. this idea that contractors are always better turns out to be one of those bipartisan bad ideas. does this mean we should start to grow out of it?

joining us now is a man who helped piece together this story, michael isikoff, nbc news investigative correspondent. mr. isikoff, thanks for being here. >> good to be with you, rachel. >> we have run through these instances where it seems like there are all these red flags about aaron alexis that were overlooked or minimized by usis or the navy. are these the sort of red flags that only look red in retrospect or the kinds of things that ought to have been a problem for his background check? >> look, it's very easy in hindsight to look back at aaron alexis and say why didn't you catch this, why wasn't that spotted or identified early? and clearly you got to sympathize with the navy to some extent and perhaps even usis. but that said, look at the details in this case. he's going for a -- he's getting a secret clearance.

an arrest record pops up. the -- usis doing the background check doesn't pull the police report, which had all those really alarming details. >> right. >> about the anger management problems that his father told the police about, suffering from ptsd. him telling the cops that he shot out the tires out of -- during a blackout which he didn't remember, because he was fueled by anger. all of that was in the public police report and none of it was pulled by the background investigators for usis. what they did was go ask him, hey, what about this. and how do you explain we see that there is an arrest here. all it said in the arrest record was malicious mischief and he said oh, i deflated the tires and that's what they write down. it's kind of like basic reporting, you go out and get an account from somebody and sort of pull the record to check and see if that matches up. and here, it clearly didn't. but none of that got reported to the navy. and, by the way, leave aside the

security clearance issue. somebody with that background with a firearms offense who says he is suffering from ptsd and anger management and all that, you can raise basic questions whether they ought to be in the military in the first place. and that's -- this is a background check going on when he has enlisted in the navy. so there clearly -- you know, from the public record we see the red flags there. and then you piece it together with all these other accounts, and some of those cases that i was looking through the court files last week, you see investigators for usis and in some cases other companies who were filing as many as a thousand fraudulent reports with the office of personnel management claiming to have done interviews they never did, claiming to have checked records that were never checked. and, you know, that's why you have people on capitol hill right now raising some serious questions about accountability. >> that's right. the senate in particular it looking into i think its overall issue of contracting here and this contractor in particular, these red flags, are stunning

and very worrying. michael isikoff, thank you for your reporting on this. >> thank you, rachel. coming up, the funniest thing ever about a political action committee. i know, it's a low bar. but it is actually really funny. that's coming up. stay with us. [ male announcer ] this is claira. to prove to you that aleve is the better choice for her, she's agreed to give it up. that's today? [ male announcer ] we'll be with her all day to see how it goes. [ claira ] after the deliveries, i was okay.

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if you are born in the united states, you are an american citizen. even if you are not born in the united states, but your parents are american, you're an american citizen. so like for example, john mccain. totally eligible to run for president, because he is a u.s. citizen. even though he was born in panama. he was born outside the united states. but his parents were americans. that is enough to make you a natural born citizen. simple, right? here is a puzzler though. what if you're born outside the united states, and only one of your parents is american -- what do you do if you were born say in mexico to a mexican mom but your dad was american? well, for decades now since the 1970s the united states has been saying, in that case, you're not an american citizen. not unless your parents were married. why does it matter if your parents were married? because the courts say in part

they say the mexican constitution is very specific in the way ate dresses the legal particulars of kids born to unmarried parents. because the mexican constitution is so specific because of article 314 of the mexican constitution, u.s. courts have been saying, in this case you are not a citizen. that is what u.s. courts have been citing for decades now about kids born to one american parent in mexico. sorry, we're constrained. we cannot call you a citizen. see for reference, article 314 of the mexican constitution. turns out there is no article 314 of the mexican constitution. it doesn't exist. u.s. courts have been citing that specific article of the mexican constitution to deny people citizenship since 1978. but that article does not exist. a new federal court ruling finally now has gone beyond all the other courts just citing each other. citing that supposed part of the constitution, finally, a federal court has gone to look it up in the original and see what it

said. they found that the original text does not exist. there is not an article 314. in the mexican constitution. there are 136 articles altogether. how would we get up over 300. forget the last 35 years of court rulings based on nothing. it's all been a big misunderstanding since 1978. glad we could finally sort this out. don't you see, mr. roper, jack tripper is not really gay after all. it's all been a big misunderstanding. one of two big misunderstandings in today's politic news. the other is about rand paul. that's next. >> very weird story in "the nascar is ab.out excitement but tracking all the action and hearing everything from our marketing partners, the media and millions of fans on social media can be a challenge. that's why we partnered with

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i'm falling. everybody look out! ahhhhh...ugh. little help here. geico. fifteen minutes could save you...well, you know. anybody? does it end after you've expanded your business?? after your company's gone public? and the capital's been invested? or when your company's bought another? is it over after you've given back? you never stop achieving. that's why, at barclays, our ambition is to always realize yours. >> very weird story in "the washington post." everyone knows what a pac is. the senate conservatives fund, sent out e-mail blast, mitch mcconnell committed the ultimate

betrayal not doing anything about cruz. there are as many pacs in politics as idea in politics and then some. the groom in ohio dumping over $1 million into a connecticut race against newtown democrat, who are they? why don't they care? government integrity fund action network is their name. whatever that means. they're a pac. who is running odd new anti-abortion ads in the new jersey governor's race. random not from here pac that spent to elect art robinson to congress couple years ago, the guy who said we should sprinkle the united states with radioactive material. pacs are opaque, sometimes weird, ubiquitous in politics now. although there are almost no rules for money in politics anymore. this is this rule about pacs. if you put the name of a politician in the name of your pac in such a way that makes it seem you are officially

associated with the politician. then you have to be officially associated with the politician. so for example there is the stand with rand pac. they love rand paul. they have t-shirts that show rand paul in silhouette. everything they do is about rand paul. rand paul, we support rand paul. an article about us. picture of rand paul. a quote from rand paul. we stand with rand. rand who? rand paul. the federal government because of the rule, they wrote to the stand with rand pac. they said you cannot use his name unless you are officially associated with him i you are not officially associated with him you. have to take rand out of your name. to which the group has now responded. and they have responded by saying -- rand who? we have nothing to do with rand paul. look at that headline in "the washington post." we don't stand with rand paul at all. the whole stand with rand thing is just a big misunderstanding. what we stand with is -- ann rand who is author of the books, beloved by college sophomores wherever literature classes are