." >> axelrod: good evening. i'm jim axl axelrod. train service on part of the busiest rail linein america is shut down tonight. two commuter trains collided during last night's rush hour, 22 miles south of new haven, connecticut. 72 passengers were hospitalized, two are in critical condition. amtrak service between new york and boston is now suspended. don dahler is in bridgeport, connecticut, where n.t.s.b. investigators are on the scene. don. >> reporter: yeah, jim, the two trains remain on the tracks here that carry millions of passengers and tons of freight every year. investigators did find the data recorders and they're now 54ing over the information on them, trying to understand what happened. for the next 7-10 days these traction will remain closed as investigators 5 pore over every inch. >> we'll be look at the breaking performance of the train, the condition of the wheels, the condition of the car. we'll be looking at the general condition of the track and the rail bed. in terms of the train operation, we'll be looking at

>> axelrod: tonight, the powerball jackpot. the top prize hits record territory, attracting hopeful ticket buyers, despite the astronom call odds. train collision in connecticut. a busy section of the northeast corridor is brought to a standstill after two commuter trains collide, injuring dozens, and frightening many more. >> i thought this is the end. brace yourself. >> axelrod: a threat of more tornadoes this weekend across the nation's heartland. meteorologist david bernard has the forecast while anna werner looks at how one warning system saved lives. and meet our latest young innovator. at just 16 years of age, he's taken on cancer diagnosis singlehandedly. >> i created a new way to test for pancreatic, ovarian and lung cancer that costs three cents and takes five minutes to run. captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news." >> axelrod: good evening. >> axelrod: gfs, i'm jim axelrod with a special west coast edition. as the clock ticks down for tonight's pow ll drawing, both the excitement and the projected

i'm jim axelrod. more than 1900 firefighters are fighting a string of wildfires in southern california, and tonight, we can report some progress in containing them. the biggest one is 50 miles northwest of los angeles with several other burning in the region. so far this year, california has seen more than 680 wildfires, 200 more than average. carter evans reports on the battle to contain the flames. >> reporter: firefighters finally caught the break they needeneeded in battling this mae blaze that has burned more than 47 square miles of ventura county, wind-driven flames have died down after burning furiously for three days, sending a towering wall of fire within several feet of homes. this is this one of the worst fires you've ever seen? >> in terms of the intensity and the ferocity, yes. >> he has battled some of california's worst wildfires upon some where hundred of homes were torched in a matter of hours. he says firefighters have learned from the past. his department pushed for tougher laws req

." >> axelrod: good evening, i'm jim axelrod. seven months after superstorm sandy ripped up board walks and washed a roller coast interthe ocean summer is getting its unofficial kickoff this weekend on the jersey shore. the next three months are the time most businesses make most of their money in beach towns along a 127 mile stretch of the new jersey coast. but as terrell brown reports, they're still not catching many breaks from the weather there. >> reporter: in seaside heights, new jersey, summer's sun official start was windy, chilly and slow. 80% of the businesses are back open and a new board walk remains under construction along the casino pier, an amusement park andar al qaeda. lou cirgliano is the marketing manager. >> people are probably coming back because they want to see what's happening and support the town but it's going to be stretched to get things going. >> construction crews have been working to rebuild the peer that was swept into the ocean, along with its most popular attacks, the jet star. so we're just ove

i'm jim axelrod. the government agency so many americans most fear looking into their ps is under increasing scrutiny itself. yesterday, the internal revenue service for inappropriate targeting of conservative organization. today, the associated press reported the irs' own inspector artyfound irs officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups. chip reid picks up the story. >> reporter: attorney jay sekulow confirms to cbs news that irs targeting the tea party groups began in 2011. >> when we saw the letters that the irs had sent to our clients i was outraged. >> reporter: as chief council of the conservative american center for law and justice, sekulow has represented nearly 30 tea party groups investigated by the irs. >> it was from coast to coast. so saying this was, you know, low-level irs employees, these weren't clerks. these were internal revenue service agents trained in tax exempt specialties. >> reporter: the irs insists that then-commissioner douglas shulman was unaware that tea party

." >> axelrod: good evening, i'm jim axelrod, jeff glor is off tonight. from oklahoma city to minneapolis severe weather is threatening the nation's midsection tonight there are tornado warnings up in kansas and iowa, oklahoma and missouri could also be hard hit. forecasters say a supercell of thunderstorms packing baseball sized hail, heavy rain and tornadoes could do a lot of damage. already a tornado has touched down this afternoon in edmund, oklahoma, and another on the southwest side of wichita, kansas, that police are calling large and violent. meteorologist jeff beradelli of wfor is tracking the storms tonight. who is facing the greatest danger? >> the greatest risk tonight is across oklahoma and kansas. we have a lot of tornado watches and warnings ongoing as we speak. in fact we have already had a touchdown of tornadoes across the plain states. here is the setup. we have a strong and cold upper level low destabilizing the atmosphere across the rockies and plain states. at the same time we have a strong jet stream on the eastern side of that meeti

. >> now even top obama guy david axelrod is casting doubt on mr. holder. will the attorney general be forced to resign? also tonight, bernie goldberg and charles krauthammer will weigh in on the growing chaos in washington. >> bill: caution, you are about to enter the no spin zone. the factor begins right now. >> bill: hi, i'm bill o'reilly. thanks for watching us tonight. pressure mounting on attorney general eric holder. that is the subject of this evening's talking points memo. as you may know, mr. holder is a very controversial guy. as the assistant attorney general he was involved with the mark rich pardon where the nation's biggest tax cheat ever was granted amnesty by president clinton. mr. holder was also involved in the fast and furious gun scandal and in the irs situation to some extent. as federal agents were used to scrutinize conservatives. finally holder signed off on calling fox news correspondent james rosen a coconspirator in a national security leak. but so far eric holder has not paid any price for his dubious decisions other than in the

jim axelrod on their summer of love. >> so the male is calling. ( whistling ) captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news" with scott pelley. we're beginning tonight with breaking news. president obama has just fired the acting head of the internal revenue service, steven miller. miller's head is the first to roll in the scandal over the i.r.s. targeting political-- conservative political groups. the president described himself moments ago as angry and here is what he said at the white house. >> the misconduct that it uncovered is inexcusable, and americans have a right to be angry about it. i am angry about it. i will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency, but especially in the i.r.s. >> pelley: the president promised full cooperation with the congress. the justice department has opened a criminal investigation. and we have more about that from nancy cordes. >> reporter: scott, we learned today from congressional sources that two i.r.s. employees in cincinnati have been disciplined by the agency. we don't know what form that discipline took. a lot of republic

. >> dubois: and jim axelrod with a world war ii vet who specialized in the art of deception. >> i was in the rubber army as i called it. the rubber army as i captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news" with scott pelley. >> dubois: good evening, scott is on assignment. i'm maurice dubois. the threatening letters addressed with poison, one addressed to president obama and two sent to the mayor of new york and his gun control group. it never got anywhere near either man but law enforcement takes every threat seriously so the question tonight is who sent them? our homeland security correspondent bob orr has been working his sources and he has the latest tonight on the investigation. bob? >> reporter: maurice, those letters containing angry threats and low-level ricin were post- marked ten days ago in shreveport, louisiana. now the f.b.i. is doing forensic testing looking for clues that might identify who sent them. the latest poison letter to surface was addressed to president obama. it was intercepted by the secret service in a mail sorting facility on a military base six

jim axelrod, cbs news, st. paul, minnesota. >> pelley: well, highly skilled workers at the vatican have made an amazing discovery. they were cleaning a fresco, and underneath the soot is what's believed to be the first european depiction of native americans. it was painted two years after columbus arrived in the americas and is consistent with his description of the natives that he encountered. what beats a pair of kings? something no one bet on. steve hartman goes on the road next. next. il to help protect your eye health as you age... [ male announcer ] it's called ocuvite. a vitamin dedicated to your eyes, from bausch + lomb. as you age, eyes can lose vital nutrients. ocuvite helps replenish key eye nutrients. ocuvite is uniquely formulated to help protect your eye health. now that's a pill worth taking. [ male announcer ] ocuvite. help protect your eye health. and now there's ocuvite eye + multi. an eye vitamin and multivitamin in one. and now there's ocuvite eye + multi. help the gulf recover, andnt to lea

david axelrod, senior adviser to president obama and now a senior political analyst and msnbc, david,pleasure to have all of you with us tonight. >> great to be with you. >> i'm curious about this. 90% of the country wanted just because the president wanted it. >> i don't think it's any secret. he was very angry about it. nothing moves him more, in my experience, than when children are abused in some way and we saw it in newtown and on our streets every day. here were commonsense measures that the entire country agreed on and they were blocked in the senate. one thing i want to point out, rev, i was listening to the discussion. there's no doubt that the republican party had a strategy from the beginning to obstruct. that's now well-documented and it's been rooted about quite a bit. there's a responsibility for voters as well. it's true that 90% of people support background checks. but until people in public office stop losing their jobs for defying that 90%, then they are going to bend in the other direction if they feel that the real heat is coming from the nra. one thing that i've s

lou: senior advisor david axelrod enter the picture and ducks arrive ban by gleaming big governmentr the a's scandal and axelrod saidart of being president is there is so mu be neece you you cannot know because the government is so fast. he also weighed in on the benghazi that'' max this story is b.s. but he did say it would b beneficial to e white house to rease all internal e-mail's about the benghazi talking points and moments ago to release more than 100 pages of females and documents pertaini to the benghazi attack moments ago and a fulleport of this major development straight ahead. but the circumstances still devolving of the associated press phone records leading the president to call for legislation to be introduced that it once opposed a bill that is essentially pretexts the nation's journalist from mr. obama iswn administration and it gets mplicated. the whithouse asked chuck schumer to reintroduce the shield back to limit the white house ability to interfer with news organizations or make reporters reveal their sources and today we found out about the attorney general doe

axelrod says it's not a legitimate news organization. robert gibbs mocked some of the questioners from the white house correspondence. i think it sends a certain message throughout the administration that fox can be a target. >> it was interesting base who accepts this administration, both the far right and far let, because the left basically came out with an article that said, if this had been done under bush or reagan there would have been a lot of screaming. >> jon: here is what nbc report. eric holder signed off on a controversial search warrant that identified james rosen as a possible co-conspirator in violation of the espionage act and authorized seizure of private emails. in may of this year, before the house judiciary committee. he said this, with regard to potential prosecution of the press for disclosure of material that is not something i have been involved in or would think would be wise policy. >> as karl rove on friday said, it would appear that holder misled the congress. others can decide what misleading in terms of lega

brace yourself. >> axelrod: a threat of more tornadoes this weekend across the nation's heartland.eorologist david bernard has the forecast while anna werner looks at how one warning system saved lives. and meet our latest young innovator. at just 16 years of age, he's taken on cancer diagnosis singlehandedly. >> i created a new way to test for pancreatic, ovarian and lung cancer that

. >> axelrod said at one point, there is so much going on beneath the president, inside the government, they can't keep track of it. i think that contradicts what keith is saying. >> absolutely. and -- look, the point is, the government is supposed to be there. you're right. okay, in a crisis, it's supposed to be there. let's point something out. the government is so big, there are people dying of thirsts, on staten island, looking for help. the president offered nothing. he couldn't get the supplies and help there when they need it. the government -- the president ought to focus -- >> are you kidding? >> i am not kidding. >> do you remember hurricane katrina when george w. bush didn't even bother to send american troops and the national guard to help people in new orleans, an entire american city was about to -- an entire american city was about to be destroyed? >> you don't want to hear the truth. hear truman in 1948, the befr lynn airlift, got food and supplies to people. the president of the united states was a couple miles away. he couldn't get anything to those people. all he cou

axelrod has said that this is not a legitimate news organization. robert gibbs, when he was press secretary, mocked some of the questioners from the white house correspondent. i think that sends a certain message throughout the administration that fox can be a target. >> you know, it's interesting because who except this administration could unite both the far right and far left because the left basically came out with an article that said, if this had been done under bush or reagan there would have been a lot of screaming. >> here's what nbc reported, jim. i want to get your reaction to this. they say eric holder signed off on a controversial search warrant that identified fox news reporter james rosen as a possible co-conspirator in violation of the espionage act and authorized seizure of his private e-mails back in 2010. in may of this year, before the house judiciary committee, eric holder said this, with regard to the potential prosecution of the press, for the disclosure of material that is not something i've ever been involved in, heard of, o

i'm jim axelrod. the government agency

jim axelrod spoke with a member of that elite force. >> reporter: 88-year-old jack macy's army job inngs too, but not the way you might think. >> i was in the rubber army as you might call it. >> the rubber army? >> the inflatable army. >> reporter: it was 1944. macy was a 19-year-old aspiring artist who had just been drafted to fight the nazi's. the arm had just a job for him. they had a mission. to deceive the forces to thinking the allies were in one location while u.s. troops were miles away. their weapons were decoy sherman tanks that the nazi's picked them up. >> reporter: the nazi's picked that up? >> we think so. >> reporter: they became known as the ghost army. a thousand artists, designers, and audio technicians using sights and sounds to dupe the enemy. did you actually take incoming? >> yeah, we took incoming. we did have casualties. there weren't many, but there were casualties. >> reporter: the existence of the ghost army remained classified for more than half a century after the war. to this day, little is known of these artist warriors. but filmmaker rick beyer hopes t

jim axelrod finds that battered women are held hostage more often than we knew. lines stretch for hours in the largest powerball jackpot ever. carter evans is in los angeles. and steve hartman on the road with charles mowbry. his combat gallantry went unrecognized until an eight- year-old took the government to school. >> he fought for our country and our freedom. everyone deserves something for that. captioning sponsored by cbs captioni this is the "cbs evening news" with scott pelley. >> pelley: good evening. the secretary of the treasury today ordered a thorough review of the i.r.s. and gave its new acting leader, daniel werfel 30 days to report his findings to the president. it was a week ago we learned the i.r.s. had been targeting conservative groups. werfel's predecessor was called before congress today. members of congress have accused steven miller of misleading them, so the house ways and means committee took the unusual step of putting him under oath, meaning that he would risk perjury charges if he were caught in a lie. nancy cordes is on capitol hill

axelrod was the guy that signaled the switch. we're going to have more with cammeron and rosen. >> huffington post wants him to resign. left leaning law professor jonathan turleyly wants him out. >> do you hear this from the left about eric holder? never before. >> bill: in mexico arizona woman, we have been covering this case in jail charged with smuggling pots 12 pounds under the bus. no one saw her carrying pot. no evidence she had pot. somehow the pot got on the bus and they are charging her. friday we will get whether they are going to go ahead with this case. if they do go ahead with it it, a mother of seven, right? >> she is. not me. >> bill: not yet. okay. mother of seven. >> right. >> bill: clean record. >> right she had traffic tickets. >> bill: down there to attend a funeral. trying to get back to the u.s.a. clip her off the bus and charge her with drug smuggling. >> bill: i think this is the end of mexican tourism if they charge her. i don't think any mexican is going to go. >> there i certainly don't think anybody is

axelrod was the guy that signaled the switch. we're going to have more with cammeron and rosen. >> huffington post wants him to resign. left leaning law professor jonathan turleyly wants him out. >> do you hear this from the left about eric holder? never before. >> bill: in mexico arizona woman, we have been covering this case in jail charged with smuggling pots 12 pounds under the bus. no one saw her carrying pot. no evidence she had pot. somehow the pot got on the bus and they are charging her. friday we will get whether they are going to go ahead with this case. if they do go ahead with it it, a mother of seven, right? >> she is. not me. >> bill: not yet. okay. mother of seven. >> right. >> bill: clean record. >> right she had traffic tickets. >> bill: down there to attend a funeral. trying to get back to the u.s.a. clip her off the bus and charge her with drug smuggling. >> bill: i think this is the end of mexican tourism if they charge her. i don't think any mexican is going to go. >> there i certainly don't think anybody is

david axelrod came out this morning and just bashed schieffer. i think the on fox news camped and others if they hadn't been bashing fox news for years, if they hadn't been bashing talk radio or and showing their hands all of this would not be plausible. >> bob: a lot of republicans are calling for a independent prosecutor. darrell issa says we know what we are doing. but more republicans argue the better standpoint. >> eric: like you said the other day, the minute you go to special prosecutor, everybody in the white house clams up. >> dana: we're going to find out because holder is going to be reaching out to news organization and going on an offensive. did you get a call. >> greg: yes, i did, we are going to have a brunch at apple business. and when you look at this stuff, don't you get the idea that president obama looks at running the united states as no big deal? he is above the fray. he is above the fray is beneath him. so in fact he is not running the united states. he is running a bed and breakfast and ignoring the complaints. >> dana: me

david axelrod now works for msnbc which is a nice change of pace thins msnbc used to work for david axelrod. it was interesting to see enthusiast the national press corps react to president obama almost five years into his tenure. most of the times they are respectful but most of them on saturday night like barack obama, despite all the problems his administration is experiencing. joining me is mr. goldberg. what i picked up was lack of gop presence. very few republicans there. and the press is not skeptical anymore of president obama. they have always liked him. you have written a book about him, slobberg love affair. and it's mostly along the political lines butch less no skepticism anymore, bernie. >> mentioned in the lead-in into this segment that they like him. you are absolutely right, and never underestimate the power of like ability in any facet of life. they have a lot invested in him. when i wrote that book a slobbering love affair, i interviewed a network news correspondent who said don't expect the press to go after nelson mandela. and said what does that have to do with this? t

david axelrod will be here. i'm sure, willie, david axelrod is making tons of cash.e walks out of the white house now, and he's like richie rich. >> i booked him at 9:00 last night. please don't ruin the work i've done. >> he takes it out to his ford f-150 and dumps it in the back. >> stop. all right. later, drone strikes are not just for the united states anymore, we'll tell you how the drone business is expanding to militaries across the world and why it's making u.s. leaders nervous. >> who would've seen this coming? >>> and up next, the top stories in the "politico" playbook. >>> good morning, east coast, we saved ourselves a memorial day weekend with that beautiful day yesterday. but all the attention in the middle of the country, more possible tornadoes and a lot of flooding too and major rivers, even the mississippi river. this morning, the worst weather in the country by far rolling through the state of missouri now into illinois and you're getting soaked from davenport to peoria, springfield the rain is beginning. spreading into chicago at the peak of your m

. >> and kennedy, i am with you regarding david axelrod.aying the government is too big and we can't know everything that is going on. >> thank you, david axelrod. >> you know what that is like? that is like saying i am so fat i can't possibly know how much i am eating, right? >> i might just try it out on "the five." sometimes i work my material here. >> sometimes? >> all the time. >> tom, you said all of a sudden democrats are against leaks. you mentioned julian assange and the administration. you could flip that. suddenly they are horrified that the public is going after leakers. >> i could. this started back when. the pentagon papers or whatever. th is romance about the press. we are over it. the press is like a sovereign nation, and they are no friend of the united states. >> stupid first amendment. what were the founding fathers thinking? >> they obviously didn't have tmz. >> is that some kind of disorder? >> in the right hands it is. >> you said you are conflicted about this story that the yemeni league was really bad which i get. wh

it's also something that david axelrod said this morning that they should do. and it looks like they have done it. >> and steven hayes said he released the transcripts and he didn't. >> directly ahead, the white house has released e-mail on benghazi. we'll be right back. stay with us. you don't want to miss this. li, we got a subaru. it's where she said her first word. (little girl) no! saw her first day of school. (little girl) bye bye! made a best friend forever. the back seat of my subaru is where she grew up. what? (announcer) designed for your most precious cargo. (girl) what? (announcer) the all-new subaru forester. (announcer) designed for your most precious cargo. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. over any other carrier? many choose us because we have the largest 4glte network. others, because of our reputation for reliability. or maybe it's because we've received jd power and associates' customer service award 4x in a row. in the end, there are countless reasons. but one choi. ... you thought wrong. get up to 50% off hotels this memorial day wi

. >> by the way, david axelrod gave a ringing endorsement and they are getting nailed for it via the irs. time and again, political corruption is now dangerously frighteningly systemic within the irs, an agency that is an intimate part of our lives. the fact that we are reporting income to this brutal agency and i will tell you the political corruption is so bad, we found the ten congress men going after the irs saying you have to do more to invest gait and probe the nonprofits. then it's flat out wrong. >> it wasn't just an internal matter. the question of getting rid of the complexity and trying to make it simpler. this president is making it more complex. i mentioned obama care before. >> the first concern is obama care. the irs is the enforcement arm of that and if you think it's bad now, wait until they get their hands on the certainly records. they are charging hospital community activities and all that. what does that mean? you have to start with obama care before you get to the flas tax. >> this is an organization that can destroy lives and businesses even before they have pr

do you agree with david axelrod?think what it does is it sucks time out of second term like david axelrod said. what this does is we have a lot of other important issues that the president would like to see capitol hill do including immigration reform. that's a huge issue. the president has said he'd like to go back to gun control issues. so i think what it does is it keeps a driss tractiistraction t hearin hearings. and there's been a lot of time cleaning up the mess. >> one of the things is democrats want to emphasize that this isn't necessarily politically motivated and that the tea party groups weren't targeted for that reason and for some reason it comes away that these groups were politically targeted and this was a partisan exercise, i think it will have a lasting impression on the obama administration. >> how distracting, david, do you think this may be for the second term and you mentioned earlier how the president was trying to refocus things on the middle class and went to baltimore and has more trips plan

as we talk about the political paraphrasing, david axelrod, kabuki theater of all of this, there's at of put these progressive things in there as decoys, but is the ultimate bill true to progressive priorities? or the prospects of reform? >> i actually think that the health care issue is a real travesty. first of all, what labrador is saying is that undocumented immigrants don't pay taxes, which we know is actually not true. the most undocumented immigrants have paid payroll taxes for a long time. >> which they don't benefit from. >> which they don't benefit from. secondly we know once they go on the path to citizenship. they'll be responsible for back taxes. so the idea of someone who is working in this country, most likely in a job that, let's be honest here, the employer has decided to not offer health care benefits, because that's, we don't see a lot of outrage about republicans saying wirks don't employers offering health care any more. what is a low-wage worker supposed to do? pay for his own cancer treatment? this is a question about what kind of country we want to be? if the

that's from david axelrod. now, i think government is too fast. i agree with the tea party. i think the biggest problem is it's too vast for president obama and his team t. vastest of the vast is the irs scandal, my friends. >> in the case of the ir sr s scandal what did we have? worse management. a complex irs code. remember, it's congress that has been cutting budgets for the irs. you had a bunch of underpaid employees that didn't know what they were doing with regard to a complex section of the code around 100 years. it's about a social welfare program, not about campaigns. >> this was about the targeting of conservative and tea party groups. this is not about some rogue office in estate having too much files on their desk. >> have you lead the inspector general's report? why do you think -- >> why did lois lerner take the fifth? if it was not political, and it was not a troublesome issue, why did lois lerner take the fifth? >> why did they all cover up, robert costa, that's the thing. >> why did darryl issa cover up? >> why was the president the last to know? why was the

joining me now is david axelrod, msnbc senior political adviser. david joining us from chicago.look at these images of the president and chris christie. there's no question that it's in both of their benefits to show bipartisanship in a blue state that barack obama handily won, chris christie can only benefit if he's looking toward 2016 by being seen with barack obama. there's no doubt about. >> the president won the state by a land slide. and it is to the governor's political, it is in his political interest to be with him to be seen with him. i think where the problem may come in is if after that election he decides he wants to run for president and you know his party is such that these images may not work to his benefit. but i think first things first. he wants to win re-election. let's give a little bit of acknowledgement to just public decorum. the fact is that the president, the governor worked closely together. this is a milestone for both of them. and a triumph for government at a time when there's great cynicism. from that standpoint it makes sense for both of them as w

does his past tell us anything about what might happen next in joining us is david axelrod. he is now director of the institute of politics at university of chicago and msnbc senior political analyst. thank you for being here. >> thank you. i'm nostalgic listening to the the recounting of the week. i'm missing washington so much. >> yeah, i bet. well you have known president obama for a long time. you've been with him through his political career. has he ever been through a very difficult sort of multifaceted period like this? personally or politically, have you seen him through periods like this before? >> oh, yes. under fact i have experienced with him. first, understand we went through a whole campaign in 2007-2008. principally 2007 in which the whole washington establishment was writingity office in competence. then during the presidency we have had these episodes. when i watched the news this week, i was getting flashbacks it that week in the spring of 2010 when the oil leak leak erupted. you remember, the president wasn't passionate enough. didn't move quickly enough.

axelrod, let's pick up on this statement.ic holder to resign and you've heard the conversation, i'm sure you read the article. he says this is not nixonian because nixon didn't even go this far. how would you respond to james? a lot of your good friends in the media who are really offended by what is going on. >> on the face of it, it's not true because nixon used those powers to go after political enemies, to go after what he considered enemies in the press. you know, these leak investigations started because people were accusing the administration -- people in the administration of leaking information to make the administration look good. >> look good, right. >> so it is a completely different situation but i think joe gets to the fundamental point, which is we have to find a way to balance what is an obvious concern, which is we can't let sensitive security information into the public domain if it is going to threaten people in the field, threaten national security operations. on the other hand, we also have to balance tha

also, david axelrod also set at university of chicago ins tuesday of politics.ou get right into the news. >> we'll start with eric holder, who is ordering a criminal investigation into the irs' targets of conservative groups. this after an internal government watchdog blamed ineffective management for the scandal. a report for the treasury's inspector general concluded that the cincinnati's office of the irs used inappropriate criteria to singling out tea party groups, adding there was insufficient oversight by management. the report also revealed that some applications for status were delaying some for as long as three years. a "usa today" analysis found that -- last night, president obama said in a statement, the reports findings where intolerable and inexcusable. promising to follow through on the inspector general's recommendations, joe. that is the headline on the irs part of this day. >> that is the headline. david axelrod, when is the first you heard of the irs, if you want to call it a scandal, whatever you want to call it. did you first learn of this la

in a lot of ways after the boston marathon bombing, the president's top political adviser, david axelrod said, well, you know, the president thought given we didn't know for sure it was after all april 15, tax day, implying maybe some of these people, the irs was investigating over the past few years were responsible. that inclination to blame anything other than the threat of international terrorism that should disturb us. if you cannot identify a threat to american security, you surely are not able to deal with it. >> lets take a look at one quote that was taken out by victoria newland at the state department who dealt with terrorism. this is this was taken out of the report. threat of extremist lightning to al qaeda in eastern libya, noted that since april there have been five other attacks by unidentified assailants including the june attack against the british ambassador's convoy. that reportedly is from the cia and that was expunged. what does that tell you? >> well, i think it shows that the intelligence community was well aware of what's going on and that the state department rea

joining us now is david axelrod, former senior presidential adviser to barack obama and now director of the institute for politics and msnbc senior political analyst. thank you for being here. >> i'm all nostalgic listening to this recounting of the week. i'm missing washington so much. >> i bet. you have known president obama for a long time. you've been with him through a lot of his political career. has he ever been through a very difficult, sort of multi-facetted period like this? either personally or politically? have you seen him through perts like this? >> of course. i experienced this with him. first of all, understand we went through a whole campaign in 2007/2008, principally 2007, when the whole campaign was writing us off as incompetents. as i was watching this this week, i was getting flashbacks to the week in the spring in 2010 when the oil leak erupted in the gulf coast, and you remember it, rachel, it was the president isn't passionate enough, didn't move quickly enough, his staff is all a bunch of idiots, are all a bunch of idiots. he ought to get rid of him. this is

leadership on this. >> david axelrod, a former journalist. not entirely comfortable on this subject, judging from "morning joe" today. david gregory, thank you very much and chris cillizza. >>> joining me now for more on the political battle over student loans, california congresswoman karen bass. congresswoman, thank you very much for joining us. i know you've been a leader on this. is this too little, too late? why is the president returning to this issue now, we've only got a month before these rates will double, if nothing happens. >> well, i actually think he returned to it quite a while ago. the press conference was today of course, but you know, i'm just really concerned. i hear from students every single day. one is because i have a piece of legislation that would cap the interest rates and would also allow students not to pay more than 10% of their discretionary income every month on their student loans. and after ten years, if they've been paid consistently, a good chunk of those loans would be forgiven. and so, i just think this is