what john tester needed that day was political cover from max baucus, a little help.ster needed to be able to say, when he went back to montana, hey, max voted for it, too. now, when senator tester goes back to montana, he's going to be challenged with, hey, baucus voted against it, why didn't you? the junior senator from arizona got exactly the kind of political cover that john tester would have appreciated from max baucus. the senior senator from arizona, john mccain, voted for expanding background checks. but that wasn't enough to pump up jeff flake's courage to do the right tlihing. senator flake, who has to explain his vote to the very same voters john mccain is accountable to followed the lead of his party instead of his senior senator and voted against background checks, something that 90% of america wanted. and in casting his vote, senator flake had to rewrite himself. karen teves wrote a letter to senator flake asking him to support gun safety legislation. she told the senator about her son alex, who was murdered while shielding his girlfriend from bullets in

john tester did vote for one little piece of that gun control bill on the background checks, but that'strol bill is something that democrats in montana will runaway from if they can. that's just the way it is. >> michael: mike that was the thrust of it. tester did vote for it, and that was a big part of what the bill was. and then baucus knowing that he wasn't going to run for re-election it doesn't matter how he votes in montana. if he voted for background checks, it seems in light of the fact that tester did it would have made it easier for baucus, no? >> you're assuming that baucus already knew that he was going to drop out of the race. i think it may be something that he was considering. i think he decided it in the last couple of days. he's been pretty consistent ever since he voted for the assault rifle ban 15 almost 20 years ago which a lot of people think hurt him. he was consistent in his votes and discussion abouts gun control. i don't think it was that much of a surprise. >> michael: quickly, you know so much. that's why belove why we love going to the states who would know a

amendment publicly, brought it to the attention of the other lawmakers sairk a senator from montana john tester. >> the second provision sent over from the house tells the usda to ignore any judicial ruling regarding the planting of genetically modified crops. they are giveaways pure and simple. they deserve no place in this bill. we have to do a better job on policy and process. >> jon: i see the problem here: the other legislators didn't know about it because senator tester brought it up on the senate floor in front of all of them. perhaps if he had written it in the memo field of a monsanto lobbyist check people would have seen it. [ laughter ] [cheers and applause] anything else in the bill nobody knew about? >> tucked away in the continuing resolution are hidden items on guns making permanent some of the restrictions on the federal government's ability to regulate guns. >> jon: it's great to see congress is making progress on the issue of gun control control s. [laughter] just out of curiosity given that senators can hold pieces of slaition and filibuster appointos -- appointees and this i

. >> senator john tester. three more senators have voiced their porn, mark warner, jay rockefeller and senator mark begich. >> jon: it has all the makings of the historic shift in public opinion and the most boring gay pride parade float ever. what seems to have triggered this wave of mind changing was one brave senator's announcement last week. >> gay marriage has picked up a prominent new supporter, senator rob portman of ohio. the only republican in the u.s. senate to take that position. >> jon: bravo rob portman. i assume senator portman thought long and hard about this and realized it's purely on the principle of the issue he needs to stand up for fairness and equal quit. >> he changed his change of heart. he said it began two years ago ago when his college aged son told his family that he is gay. >> jon: that would do it, too. i never realized a human being could actually be gay until my wife and i accidentally made one. not all his republicans are so easily swayed. >> senator sax by chambliss is reaffir

so a key one to watch under that is if john tester is a yes, what will max baucus do? will he break with his fellow montanans? >> political cover, thanks for taking the time. >> you bet. in the streets of pyongyang today, north koreans marked the start of a three-day national holiday celebrating the birthday of north korea's first leader, kim il sung. the latest display of patriotic fervor comes as analysts wonder whether the north's leader will seize the moment to make good on threats of a nuclear launch. nbc's chief foreign correspondent, richard engel is in seoul. so far, a quiet day. given me the latest on what happened. >> well i think what's important is what didn't happen so much. there was no major military parade. there has been so far no test firing of a missile. a missile that nobody thought would be armed with nuclear weapons. a missile that people thought would just splash into the sea. even that hasn't happened. and north korean leaders didn't use this occasion to make more bombastic threats about turning the sea into fire or attacking the united states.

and john tester did the right thing. again, he has more time.s who are making noise about not just stopping the flow of money to these democrats but challenging them in primaries next year. going into arkansas and al alaska and challenging begich, if you want revenge, i understand. but if a national group comes at these guys from the left and takes them out in the primary, can you actually win that seat? >> i think so. i think the issue clearly has shifted the politics on this. sometimes i think and like i said to the guests here, i'm green to the politics of a lot of this. a lot of this is speculation on my part. but i am back home in virginia. i am in oak creek, wisconsin, i've been to aurora, colorado. i've been out with some of the survivors on different -- on this issue in different venues. it's very different out there in the america and back home in america. it's this inside the beltway kind of conversations are relevant, but frankly, they're not relevant back home with a lot of americans. we want leadership on this and we want our electe

i think whether it's in the texas that ted cruz represents, senator cruz, or it's john tester or mary some of these concerns are a bit archaic in the world of drones and technology that tracks every move we make? that government is going to come take your guns or invade us like waco or something? i mean, they -- >> they believe very strongly that they have to press these issues so there isn't a creeping of government greater control. >> okay. >> it's a fight for them on each issue. >> the good news it looks like we are -- >> that's good. >> thank you. >> take the positive. >> no labels. margaret carlson and kelly o'donnell, thank you so much. david growiegory, stick around, you can. >> some claims are backlogged up to years. paul reichoff will join us next. my mantra? trust your instincts to make the call. to treat my low testosterone, my doctor and i went with axiron, the only underarm low t treatment. axiron can restore t levels to normal in about 2 weeks in most men. axiron is not for use in women or anyone younger than 18 or men with prostate or breast cancer. women, especially th

gavel in, the health and human sophists service committee katherine fu senator tester, we will show you the comments of john boehner from wednesday as the president's budget was released. >> while the president has backtracked on some of his entitlement reforms, and conversations we have, he does deserve some credit for some incremental entitlement reforms. he has outlined in his budget, but i would hope that he would not hold hostage the modest reforms for his demand for bigger tax hikes. why don't we do what we can agree to do? why do we find the common ground that we do have and move on that? the president got a tax hike in january, we don't need to be raising taxes on the american people. so i'm hopeful in the coming weeks, we'll have an opportunity to the budget process to come to some agreement. >> good morning. finally, the president has offered his budget to the american people. and what we see inside the document is more of the same, spending, higher taxes, more debt. the speaker talked about the fact that there are some things in the budget beyond the tax increases that, frankly, we can find some