adam smith calls them a witch hunt. he's a ranking member of the house armed services committee and joins us live. congressman, welcome. good to see you today. >> good to see you. thanks for having me on. >> okay. so let's start with the basic overall question about whether or not the families of those who were lost, the loved ones of those who died that day, do you think their questions have been sufficiently answered by the investigations to this point? >> yes. i believe they have by the multiple investigations by congress and many instances by multiple different committees. i think congress needs to address oversight. when this incident happened we had an absolute responsibility to do that. the unfortunate part of this is that it's become so partisan in such a desperate effort, primarily by chairman issa but also others within the republican party, to try to smear the administration by making up charges and then trying to investigate them and disproving them and then bringing them back up again. we had the whole argu

congressman adam smith is a democrat from washington.magazine's mark halperin is msnbc's senior political analyst. don't these people read the reports that come out? we know what happened in benghazi. it was ignited by that stupid anti-islamic video. they used the word extremist rather than terrorist. they didn't use the world al qaeda. that was a decision by general petraeus, himself. i do not get why they keep acting like we don't know anything when we know pretty much everything. your thoughts. >> first of all, the right-wing conspiracy, the clown car as you're calling it today, don't live in the fact. based world. they haven't heard anything you just said or any of the numerous reports that made it clear what representative bachmann is saying is completely totally untrue. has no basis in reality whatsoever. so they simply keep repeating it over and over and over again. >> what's their goal? bottom line, what's their home run here? >> they keep throwing mud up. two goals. one, they throw mud up the same wall and hope it sticks. they'r

i look as close to adam smith as anybody else in congress.so we are trying to trick you into thinking i am. i am funnier. no one gets a carve out. dealing with sequester is about dealing with discreationary and mandatory spending. not just defense, non-defense, or whatever budget. that is the challenge we face. and one is for the heathier long-term process of the federal budget as a whole. >> one more question on this part of the world. congressman thornberry, you mentioned treaty obligations and i know this is a delegate subject especially for government members because explaining how we would do that has downsides. but i would like to ask anything about if we wake up tomorrow and china takes one of the inhabited islands -- what do we do? and it is coming to you sitting congressman. do we have to have a military response that is symmetric? someone said we would have to kick them off. that is the answer? some could be sanctions and other non-direct but resolute responses. do you have a strongly view on that? >> we need to be clear we will sta

a time say five years ago when people talked about selfishness recognized the invisible hand of adam smitharket place and talked about selfishness as good and a necessary influence on outcomes in a capitalist society. >> listen. why are there watches that cost $100,000 in the world? why? because somebody's willing to work for it. i'm not particularly, but they're going to create jobs. >> exactly. an old friend of mine once said the only exorbitant price for anything is the price that someone won't pay. >> exactly right. >> it proved to be true. >> it's been proved to be true. and either you believe in the inherent worth of the individual and his connection to goodness which i happen to relate a connection to a higher power or you don't. and the only place you can go if you don't is to the collective having power and that's where barack obama is. >> you know the word collective always scare -- ought to scare the living hell out of every american. to everything this nation stands for, everything that our forebearers fought for. it's astonishing to me to hear the word incorporated into this a

i would note our ranking member adam smith has said this clearly. i am asked to do this, close to adam smith as anyone in congress. [laughter] i am funnier. say, if we are going to deal with the sequester, we have to deal with 100% of the budget. no one gets carveouts for any reason. dealing with the sequester is about discretionary and mandatory spending, not just discretionary. that is the challenge that we face in order to do it right. there are tougher choices but ones we have to make for the healthier long-term prospect of the federal budget. >> one more question on this part of the world and then i will wrap up and handed off to mckenzie. congressman for very, you mentioned tree obligations -- you mentioned treaty obligations. i know this is a delicate subject, explaining this in advance has a downside but i would like to ask if there is anything you can say about a hypothetical, if we wake up ing one ofomorrow tak the uninhabited senkaku islands, what do we do? little the question a bit more fair to you as a member of congress, to we have to

congressman adam smith, the ranking democrat on the house armed as much ass committee.month, you asked the pentagon to estimate the cost of the countless benghazi investigations and based in part on that investigation, you're actually calling on republicans to end what you're calling a witch hunt, will you explain? >> the answer we got back is this has cost millions of dollars. all the questions were answered well over a year ago. none of the charges the republicans have tried to bring about mall fees sans on the part of the -- they keep doing it for purely part -- we need to talk to the department of defense about what happened. and we did. and we got answers. there was never any effort to cover it up. that has been handled. now what the republicans are doing on multiple committees, all driven by the partisan desires of their leadership is in fact a witch hunt, they want to find something to blame the obama administration about on this, even though there's nothing there. it has an incredibly corps row sif affect on what -- it loses it's credibility and that's clearly h

. >> adam smith, thank you so much. we appreciate it. head back out to chuck and have a little bit of fun just in time for the end of april. we're wrapping up our tdr march madness tournament, it started with 64 folks who never became commander in chief. we let you, the viewer, pick the contender you would like to have sent to the white house. chuck, you have the champion. tell us who won. >> i have the champion? i think you have the champion, kristen. you've got to do the reveal. there it is. it's bobby kennedy, who was a number one seed and he was the most popular. by the way, he had the best twitter campaign going. he had many members of his own family that were creating retweets and doing what they could to get the voting going. there are not many living relatives of ben franklin around. so bobby -- the rfk folks had that going for them. but you got to be impressed that ben franklin got as far as he did. i thought john glen would get closer to the final four. i thought alexander hamilton and we can discussion whether he was constitut

we realized, tyler, that the consumer is king before anybody else did, except for maybe adam smith, whohat almost in the same words in 1776 in "the wealth of nations." puts those ideas together and xwremting them was the tough task. >> what did you miscalculate that you wish you had gotten right but didn't? >> well, i'm happy to tell people that most of the mistakes i've made, which are really numerous, beyond belief really that all this good came out of it, is that i've done for marketing reasons. that's a terrible reason to do anything in the investment big. that means if the public wants a certain kind of fund, give it to them. that's what got me into the merger, the merger with the go go group up in boston back in 1966, and they destroyed the fund that we acquired with them, they almost destroyed the conservative wellington fund and i had to pay the price. i tell people, you make a big mistake, pay a big price, who says life isn't fair? so we got into specialized portfolios, that was a mistake. we got into real estate partnerships, that was a mistake. we got into horizon funds now l

that's what adam smith said.way to think about the investor, the best way to be selfish for the investor is to think first about the people who work on your team. because the guest experience, the customer experience will never ever rise to a higher level than the employee experience ever. >> danny, right now, there is a big restaurant chain many of us are familiar with, darden, olive garden, red lobster. they're actually under attack from shareholders who feel they're not doing enough for shareholders. what do you do if you're under attack from shareholders for declining comparable store sales? is it a change in the way you handle employees? or are some methods of restauranteuring old-fashioned? >> i've got confidence we'll figure this out. however, i think a lot of restaurants play in what's been a tough segment these days. the casual restaurant segment has been squeezed. it's been squeezed by the economy. it's been squeezed by fast casual, which has found a way to deliver really good food at much lower prices.

people are asking about liberty and there was a time when you would have to give them a copy of adam smith's moral sentiments, all 700 pages. i really tried to boil that down into some common sense principles like don't hurt people. don't take their stuff. take responsibility. i think these kinds of values which are at the core of the libertarian philosophy happen to be the same values that made america work so well. the opportunities to succeed, the responsibility that comes with liberty. >> okay. and all of that is great. but here's the downside. the people who will buy your book and read it and agree with you aren't the problem. they are not taking people's stuff. all right? and they are not hurting anybody, generally speaking. the real bad people aren't going to read it. so what do we do? >> well, i mean, this is why i tried to translate it down because we love to use jargon. we love to use pie charts. one of the principles in my book is work for it we malign work today and i think there is something really cool about work. the opportunity to do something that people haven't done before.

this is a quote i begin with from adam smith, the father of free market economics in 1776. one of the duties of the sovereign is to maintain public institutions and public works without which the wonders of the free market would not be possible. what i look at is initially a couple of case studies be on health care, and some thought examples. what would these indices look like if the government had not intervened? what with the computer industry look like if we didn't have the internet? say what you want about al gore but the government did, in fact create the internet. we had personal computers before the internet, before the internet was commercialized. 1984 was when apple introduced the first macintosh computer, but the industry would look nothing like it does today were it not for the internet. interstate highways did a similar thing for automobiles, particularly trucks and buses. the satellites the government launched, tv the we know today, particularly cable-tv. and more disciplined, fannie mae and freddie mark -- freddie mac. it created a whole industry. we can then

it has contributors from adam smith to elizabeth warren. we see the myriad factors. if you want to deal with poverty in this country, it's not that hard. "a," you need better education. "b," you need jobs and policies that promote the creation of jobs here, not sending them overseas. you need transportation. we subsidized companies to move jobs out of the areas where people are poor to the suburbs and to rural areas. you need to have better pay which means unions. if you believe in market economics, you should believe in unions because it means there's bargaining power on both sides of the table and we need to stop treating college as a business that helps lenders of money and go back to the system that our competitors have where good students get a free ride to go to college because we're investing in the future. ryan's plan's very simple, steve. cut things for the poor. cut food stamps. cut health care. that's it. >> well, of course, as we said at the top, paul ryan is promising to have some new ideas, some new proposals later this year. though something tells me t

and i quote adam smith in the book on this point that we almost worship the rich and we want to stayeople who are poor and bad disposition. if there are not jobs, and if government money moves jobs out to the suburbs away from the cities, then you're going to have these problems with employment. one of the things we did to japan was require a minimum income in japan. and if we did that, we would have a lot less social pathology. by the way, many, many poor people work awful, terrible jobs at long hours that many people who have nice white collar jobs couldn't imagine holding. >> no, that's absolutely correct. the notion that the poor don't work as hard as those who are 300 times that rate is absurd. i don't think anyone's making that point but people of the world have made that point. but when we talk about this is a political issue in the wake of citizens united and the mccutchen decision where the wealthiest are having a greater impact with their speech, it seems this problem is only going to spiral further and further out of control. >> if we could bring the founders back, they wo

if his ideas are not dead and buried and living, his ideas go back to pre-hayek, pre-adam smith, where might be the answer. >> where the money should go. >> how refuiated? now i'm playing sarah palin. >> joining the conversation on the state of the eurozone, mark grant. it's usually a mock turtle or t-shirt. it's the open collar. >> a shirt. >> with baseball cards we trade who gets the lead different people. i had to give andrew a first round draft pick and money for me to be able to lead you, not just to talk about europe, mark, but to talk about the ten-year and talk about whether we hit 3% gdp. aren't there some strange things happening? aren't you seeing signs that maybe were more optimistic than we should be right now? >> yes. i agree with that, joe. what's happening is, i wrote a piece about this in my commentary out of the box called the new world order. what's happened is, that the fed has overcome the bond markets. i mean, they initially began that after the financial crisis in 2007 and -- or 2008 and 2009. now they've continued on with this and this is the reason why we're in

price discovery mechanism which is the result of buyers and selling coming into the marketplace per adam smith concept of the invisible hand if you're paying for front row seats to grab data and ahead of other players in the market that's no longer a free market capitalism that's a kleptocracy whoever made that comment should be flayed in public their skin or ripped off like an episode from game of thrones and then their head chopped off and then put on a spike and the heat on by the general population because they are a traitor to everything anyone hold sacred in america. well that's a bit extreme maybe you should join with the biggest a hole in america as he goes by and this is we've he was released from prison early because he was sentenced to forty one months in prison for exposing security holes and eighteen t.'s servers that publicly revealed i pad addresses email addresses for their users and because he revealed this information he was charged under the c f a a which is a computer fraud and abuse act he's now out and he says we've talks about life in prison and his plans to open a hedge

ultimately leads to the ideal outcome something that these guys try to pin on older economists like adam smith who had a lot of ideas they wouldn't have brought in a really big and so go along with their moral sentiments yet they were out of time i'm sorry thanks so much for you guys tonight once again what's the website this is the zero hour dot com got it thanks. each team. is the good the bad a very very cold a generally ugly the good the golden state warriors according to sports columnist marcus thompson the team was prepared to boycott it's just a game with the l.a. clippers if n.b.a. commissioner adam silver didn't ban clippers owner donald sterling phrase racist remarks johnson wrote the warriors players want to protest previously but decided to give the silver a chance to do the right thing and silver had announced the punishment for sterling's bigoted comments were an indefinite suspension and measly fine the warriors were ready to make and the story state luckily for warriors fans commissioner silver did end up banning donald sterling for life but that shouldn't take away from what t

and help businesses grow so they can i don't know you pointed out and you here you were quoting adam smithyou are supposed to be quoting ronald reagan it is if you based on rich people having lots and lots of riches and stories being full of stuff well here's the problem that we run into. if people don't have enough money to buy simple things then two things one they just begin end up becoming spigots for the wealthy to continue making money they become cogs in part of the machine the other thing that ends up happening takes a bit longer but it ends up happening is that they stop buying consumer goods and the people the very top start to suffer to eventually eventually but they've got so much. and are in the businesses that my husband and i only employ about twenty five people and nobody makes anywhere close to minimum wage in the health care industry and when we pay our folks very well and. we've had to make some choices and decisions. as far as making people part time looking at hours doing that kind of thing just like any business would have to do you know when we get into difficult tim

smith now. >> reporter: adam silver, a few months in as nba commissioner facing major controversy. what to do about los angeles clippers owner donald sterling. >> we do hope to have this wrapped up in the next few days. >> reporter: according to the nba, that starts with an investigation. making sure the voice on the tape is donald sterling. and then speaking to the owner. then he could face fines, suspension, or worse. >> i don't think the league wants donald sterling owning this team for another day. >> reporter: in pro sports, owners and executives have faced heavy penalties for race-based remarks. in 1987, al campanis, the gm for the los angeles dodgers made these comments about african-americans on abc's "nightline." >> i truly believe they may not have some of the necessities to be -- let's say a field manager or perhaps a general manager. >> reporter: he was fired two days later. in 1993, marge schott, then owner of the cincinnati reds was suspended for a year and fined $25,000 for making racial and ethnic slurs. but removal of sterling, the nba's longest tenured owner, may

smith is live. nick. >> reporter: basketball commissioner adam silver is not prepared to discuss sanctions, but promised the investigation would move quickly. many see this as the first true test of adam silver as leader of the nba. in his first year as commissioner spoke about the growing controversy at a press conference before game four between the thunder and grizzlies in memphis. >> the audio recording posted by tmz is truly offensive and disturbing. and we intend to get to the bottom of it as quickly as possible. >> the audio recording of a man, donald sterling, telling his girlfriend not to bring black people to his games has angered many. >> people call you and tell you that i have black people on my instagram. and it bothers you? >> yeah, it bothers me a lot. if you want to broadcast that you are associating with black people. do you have to? >> you associate with black people. >> i'm not you. you are not me. you are suppose to be a delicate white or latina girl. >> of black and mexican descent, post a picture of herself with magic johnson on instagram, an act that angered. >> do anything. do n

smith. john the nba says they want donald sterling to sell the team. is it going to happen? >> well, adamilver is take this personally. >> i am personally distraught that the viewed expressed by mr. sterling came from within, an institution that has historically taken such a leadership role in matters of race relations, and caused current and former players, coaches, fans, and partners of the nba so question their very association with the league. >> all right. so del, two things seem to need to happen to force this sale. number one, 22 of the 29 other nba owners have to vote to approve this sale, and by adam silver's remarks yesterday, it seems he feels he already has that support, and they have to weather the storm if donald sterling decides to fight this in court. >> and that's the question everybody is asking right now is will he fight? >> he is a lawyer by trade. he spent the better part of his adult life in various courtrooms either trying cases or defending himself in other cases, one in discrimination in a renting lawsuit. he also has owned this team for 34 years, so i would say i

smith. thanks for joining us this morning. we saw that press conference by commissioner adam silver last night. promising a quick investigation and action. what do you expect? >> well, i expect him to do exactly what he said. they're going to investigate it. if nigh can awe tent indicate that is, indeed donald sterile's voice on that tape, i think you'll look for him to meet with the owners and try to bring down some heavy fine, potentially a suspension on the part of donald sterling. i'm not sure that will be enough in light of these allegations based on what we have heard from that tape. i think you're going to hear people clamoring for stiffer penalties. meaning the owners getting together and possibly moving donald sterling out of ownership. i don't think that will be easy. dmout about it. you'll hear people calling for that in the days to come. >> you've already heard players like lebron james saying there's no place for him in the league. for this in the league. you were reporting on the clippers having a meeting before their game yesterday, and talking about the possibility of even boyco

>> this will be adam silver's first big test. when tommy smiththink the athletes understand the power that they have and the influence. i think they should stand up. i think something should be said. >> kevin johnson said, a former nba great, i don't know if he shot as well as otis birdsong, but he said it's a defining moment. why, otis? why does this become a flash point that's more than anything perceived in the league? >> well, i played ten year it's in nba, and i've been involved with the sport a long time. and this is the first time that anything like this has ever happened before. with an owner making a comment like this, this has never happened before. >> enough never heard -- >> never, ever. >> who was supposedly racist? >> never, ever. being involved in the nba. >> rumor they got caught saying it? >> i've never heard. >> never heard the speculation? >> never. >> but you did hear about this owner? >> absolutely, years. >> what made him special, why was he insulated as people calling him out? >> i don't have the answer to that question. >>

adam schefter broke. a lot of breaking. >> then he didn't call. i went to twitter and said, please call. >> yeah. >> call collect. we don't care. just come on our program, but, nope. >> stephen a. smithot ahold of him. >> that's right. he knows him. >> yeah. >> we're out. >> a little bit of nonsensing. just a little bit. >> a little bit. >>> up next, "the pulse," a group of guys that don't need any machinery to move a house. >>> and luckiest passengers ever. the cast of broadway's show there, "the lion king," providing in-flight entertainment. ♪ of "looking for a good deal" and "sheesh, i should've looked some more." ♪ that's why walgreens makes it easy to save even more on your medicare part d prescriptions. ♪ just stop on by and leave all the legwork to us. switch to walgreens today where you could save with copays as low as zero dollars on select medicare part d plans. at the corner of happy and healthy. on select medicare part d plans. in any foods. r really gave much thought to the acidity never thought about the coffee i was drinking having acids. it never dawned on me that it could hurt your teeth. my dentist has told me your enamel is wearing away, and that sounded really sca

adam silver the commissioner of the nba. the clippers are and from the president himself had been outraged. i want to bring in charles smith, a former forward for the clippers. he's the ceo of the pro basketball alumni association. thank you for being with me. i want to play an a additional recording that's said to be that of donald sterling and the woman who is his ex-girlfriend. take a listen. >> i don't understand -- i don't see your views. i wasn't raised the way you were azed. >> well, then if you don't feel -- don't come to my games. don't bring black people and don't come. >> do you know that you have a whole team that's black that plays for you? >> you just -- do i know? i support them and give them food, clothes and cars and houses. who gives it to them? does someone else give it to them? >> you spent four years with the clippers. is that the donald sterling that you knew? is that the donald sterling you worked for? >> those comments unfortunately that's the donald sterling i use ared to work for. mr. sterling is a different kind of guy. there is no doubt about it. >> what do you mean? >> his history speaks for it

smith fbn. >> a family arriving back in san diego after their one-year-old became year. it was two weeks in the around the world trip. adamy has the story. >> yes. the uss vander griff came a port. this is in the last couple of minutes. the video of them as they came in the port here in san diego. the family just left the ship and taken to a near by hospital. it is a navy hospital where the one-year-old will be looked at. she's responded well to medication. and on thursday. the uss coast guard and navy began the rescue operation. they parachuted in to the water and boarded the boat and stabilized the young girl. and the war ship travelled a thousand piles back to san diego. the young girl showed signs of salmonella poisoning and fever and a rash. she has responded to the medication. the family responded to the criticism that they were not prepared and not having to pay for the rescue. in part, their statement released through the navy. >> we understand there are those to question our decision to sail. this is how our family has lived for sen years and we were then and remain today confident that we were prepared as any sa

smith. espn's kevin black stone and "the washington post" jason reid. jason, first to you. what do you think? >> i think adam did what he had to do. internal pressure from the players outraged. sponsors fleeing. not just that they were fleeing the clippers. the nba is a revenue sharing league. you have 30 teams. they put the money into the pot and they get the money back out documented sterling in this situation was costing thinks fellow owners money. had do do what he had to do. >> i was surprised when i heard banned for life. i thought i would hear suspended indefinitely and off season find a way to get him out of the league. you know what? kudos to the players for finding some way to bring closure to this deal. of course, there is still the process that they have to go through to get him out of the league i'm proud of the players understanding that they have strength in a collective body and being able to bring some change to the league. >> what do you think steger is thinking tonight? >> you know what? from what we have heard of that tape and the way he has behaved in recent years, whatever he is thinkin

this might be a chance for adam silver to put his mark on the league as new commissioner by taking. >> what a thing to begin your term with. thank you, john henry smith. the crisis in ukraine as the west prepares new sanctions for russia. american soldiers are head today eastern europe. today, the u.s. deployed 150 troops to lithuania. they will be ready if the conflict spills beyond the borders. america is sending 600 troops to that region. meanwhile in eastern ukraine, gun men are proposing a prisoner swap. russians accused them of spying. their captors say they will exchange them for jailed pro-russian activists. the latest from donetsk >> reporter: on both sides in eastern ukraine, funeral are becoming political events. this time, it was probe russian separate tests laying one of those their heroes to rest in the town of slovyansk. lubanits killed by ukrainian soldiers two days ago, now a martyr for his cause. >> long live lombas. ukraine is with russia >> it's in slovyansk that the military observers are beingheld by pro-russian gun men who said .1 way they could be released would be in an exchange for the government in kiev which is holding a n

smith, intel. chief financial officer. this will be "bloomberg west" and after earnings are out, of course, after the bell. this is "bloomberg surveillance ." i'm tom keene. with me, adamjohnson alix steel. grow the food is off this week. forget about bank earnings but let's talk about a real company that makes something tangible and valuable. >> i have not drank a coke since college. what about you guys? what r -- >> rarely. >> basically americans are drinking less soda. concerns about obesity and also sugar intake and calories. u.s. consumption for soft drinks is down 5% since 2000 and eight and diet soda consumption has fallen nearly 12%. this is a major headwind when coke report earnings today. it gets about 70% of the global sales volume from carbonated drinks and cocoa really targets 12 to 17-year-olds, pretty sad and brutal, and that is where we see the fallout. >> what does the sell side say? talk and not enough action. >> interesting you say that because coke has almost 50% of market share and carbonated drinks and analysts are actually pretty positive on the stock. wells fargo in particular saying investors are just a little bit too negative right now and cos