been receiving conflicting accounts of what life was like in jonestown. >> california congressman leo ryanfollowing the story with an intense personal interest. >> a lot of constituents came to congressman ryan and were legitimately outraged and anguished and wanted something to be done. and frankly, that's what government is supposed to do. >> ryan had a reputation, very tempestuous. i want to see it for myself. larger-than-life character. and he had spent some time in the state prison to sort of see conditions firsthand. >> what he had was this unquenchable desire to seek truth out. and if someone said everything's okay, it was reason for him to say everything isn't okay. >> so he -- he pulled a group together, he met with a bunch of people including reporters at various newspapers including myself and he sort of said, i'm going to go down to jonestown and i'm going to see firsthand what it's like in there. >> i was the nbc correspondent responsible for latin america. and about a week before they went down, ten days before they went down, i was called by the foreign editor in new york an

they were in guyana with representative leo ryan. democrat of california.n was killed. >> i don't think that anyone was expecting physical trouble at that level, guns, weaponry, that sort of thing. i think everybody was surprised. >> i really think he thought he was a member of congress. and there's a congressional shield of protection. we wouldn't think of doing that today without taking protection or security. >> congressman leo ryan had taken a news team and a group of concerned relatives to guyana for a look inside jonestown, where jim jones and his california people's temple had relocated under a dark and growing cloud of accusations. >> a lot of constituents had young children, young adolescent children and young adults who had become involved in the people's temple. and they were concerned about them. and a number of them came to congressman ryan and said, we think something is wrong. we feel that our kids have been taken over by this man. and there were reasons to be concerned. there were allegations that there was gun running. allegations of sexual

jim jones murdered then-representative leo ryan before committing mass suicide in 1978.e since apologized, but we don't make this stuff up on purpose. >> right. i think john podesta, he does a lot of things for the president, but he also has some critical elements in the sense that podesta helps the left think that the president in his second term is going to try to be progressive. you couldn't pick a more progressive counselor. in terms of building relationships with republicans, even though he had strong relationships in the '90s with clinton when he was on that staff, he's not known now as someone who builds bipartisan compromise. thoo he's a bomb thrower. that comment shows it. republicans and the president need to get along in the second term if they want to have any kind of major legislation. >> robert costa, always great to have you. thanks so much. >> thank you. >>> up next, what to expect from the economy in 2014. and stock market shocker. the fed pumps the brakes on stimulus and the world does not end. we've just gotten rolling here on "the cycle" for thursday,