let me go back to the time issue because you said that chuck cooper new and many people believed that it was important for the case to go slowly. because that would allow, that did happen, more states to recognize marriage equality. it would allow more prominent people from both sides of the aisle to come around and support marriage the quality. chad griffin and ted olson wanted to get their piece there, fast, and that they were frustrated. at one point you said chad wanted to scream went another, there was another ninth circuit slow down. >> guest: people was a judge reinhardt sa saved the case fore use of they were upset with the delay caused. >> host: and you actually say they wanted to keep the dough may cases to the supreme court. -- doma cases. i wonder why because i don't anyway thought it would be bad for the supreme court to hear and strike down doma at the same time addressing the issue of marriage equality for same-sex couples across the country. so do you think it was more ego? it doesn't sound like rational legal thinking to me. >> guest: yes, and let me kind of layout wh

chuck cooper, but as an amazing of pollution along the way. you know, the low point. >> so fearful of being cross-examined and turns out their testimony was intensely intensely and back on less person honored that the audit would be. so you can read about that in the book. you were talking about this earlier. one of the things you do, you load up everything in no way up high. here is all the good stuff. in a new kind of slowly and pack . you want surprises. it's kind of neat. everyone knows the of come. so what has been great it's a page turner. and in the reason he wants is because you get to know these people in the way you did not throughout the five years of red lines. you really want people to invest you want to save some surprises for the end. you want time attention. you never think that data, a single strategic difference. you would never know the chris and sandy and jeff and paul were and pick. you would not all of these things. they have tried to do that. it's like putting the average giant puzzle literally from a half years. trying

latest on the sergeant bowe bergdahl case i'm joined now by helene cooper for "the new york times" just returned from traveling with chucknd reporting on the bergdahl case. david, first to you, you escaped only a few weeks before bergdahl was taken. we believe by the very same group. what can you tell ugs about the group and their m.o.? >> their m.o. is to grab people in afghanistan and move them into pakistan. the interesting thing about my case and bergdahl case, the h a haqani network, why didn't the pakistani military find bowe bergdahl and since they have ties with this faction, why didn't the pakistani military pressure them to release bergdahl? we have given pakistan $18 billion in military aid since 2001. >> and we see these latest incidents in karachi, two days in a row under fire by taliban elements there. there's been so much attention to -- not enough as many would say to afghanistan, but so little attention to our so-called allies in fak stan and what they are or not doing as you points out. no information from them i'm told over the years as to where bergdahl might have been. no hope in negotiating a better

cooperative, that's good. i refer to the chinese as -- one recent example, the chinese military reported on the visit by our defense secretary, chuck hagel, to their aircraft carrier. they long asked us to be invited to ours, so we invited them to ours, the reagan one. the chinese are making a big deal of the fact that our aircraft carrier is so much more modern, effective, so much more capable of being threatening than theirs that this is an invitation deliberately designed to humiliate. i think we have to strife to seriously divert it and they have to strive to divert it and they had a long editorial emphasizing precisely that point, that america and china have to resume striving, that things they're hinting have slipped and it isn't easy to point a finger at one side and say they're the fault. i happen to agree with that. we have done it and they have done it, too, and i think we better take a second look. >> i wanted to follow up on a comment of yours. >> excuse me, thanks very much. >> you mentioned this issue of the chinese making a compromise in terms of how it's structured. one issue that didn't seem to come up publicly in

chuck todd, thank you very much. by the way, tomorrow we will sit down with secretary of state john kerry to talk more about these u.s. options in iraq. the possibility of cooperatingith iran and much more. >>> for now let's go over to craig melvin for the other top stories of the morning including two executions overnight. craig, good morning. >> good morning. breaking overnight, the first executions since a botched lethal injection in oklahoma two months ago. in georgia, 59-year-old marcus wellons was executed by lethal injection just before midnight. wellons was convicted for the 1989 murder of his 15-year-old neighbor. also overnight in missouri, 46-year-old john winfield was executed for a double murder in 1996. authorities say the executions went smoothly with no complications. >>> and lawyers for some of those acrobats injured during a circus stunt last month say they plan to file a lawsuit now. four of the acrobats took part in an emotional news conference in boston tuesda the women were hurt during a performance of the ringling brothers & barnum and bailey's circus when the apparatus fell to the ground. the women said they wanted to thank the world for all