our report tonight from nbc's mark potter. >> reporter: arizona rancher, john lad, whose land includes eight miles of mexican border fence, says that while fewer cross his fence now he is overrun by the drug runners. he fears many are armed >> they have no regard for laws or anything, and if they want to cause us harm they're going to do it. >> reporter: this video shot by a hidden camera on his land shows a group of smugglers carrying bales of marijuana, which lad says he sees regularly, also they cut holes like this in the fence, and they drive trucks through it, headed with drugs, he believes, headed for the ranchland. >> the problem is, our government at the highest level doesn't want to admit what the reality is, is that we have been invaded. >> reporter: in surrounding cochise county, arizona, they fear the drug smugglers, especially after the deaths of two agents. >> we have chunks of this country that we've given control to, to armed thugs. >> reporter: this retired official says that washington has ordered fuel supervisors to downplay the threats in rural counties. >> they don

nbc's mark potter is in sierra vista, arizona tonight where agent nicholas ivy lived with his family. good evening. >> reporter: good evening to you, brian. federal investigators tell nbc news that based on evidence they've found so far, they are looking into whether this shooting may have been a friendly fire incident. agents shooting at each other. agent nicholas ivy of the border control was shot and killed early tuesday morning while responding to desert sensors that track illegal movement across the border. two other agents were with him. one was wounded. they had reported being fired upon earlier. about five miles north of the border near naco, arizona. officials blamed the shootings on armed criminals and mexican authorities say they have made two arrests related to the case. while u.s. investigators say they have reached no conclusions and still have a lot of work to do, they cannot rule out the possibility this was a friendly fire. brian? >> mark potter with this late development out of arizona tonight, thanks. >>> overseas this evening, we've learned that after weeks of wait

mark potter, nbc news, miami. >>> that's our broadcast on a wednesday night. you for being here with us. we'll look for you back here tomorrow night. i'm brian williams. and a reminder, we're back on the air tonight with our live coverage of the presidential debate, 9:00 eastern, 6:00 pacific. we'll look for you then. good night from new york.

mark potter, who has covered the drug war extensively for us, is in sierra vista where he lived with his family. good evening. >> reporter: federal investigators tell nbc news that based on evidence they have found so far, they are looking into whether the shooting may have been a friendly fire incident. agents shooting at each other. he was shot and killed early tuesday morning while responding to desert sensors that track illegal movement across the word board e. they had reported being fired upon about five miles knnorth o the border. u.s. and local officials blamed the shootings on armed criminals and mexican authorities say they have made two arrests in the case. but while u.s. investigators say they have reached no conclusions and have a lot of work to do, they cannot rule out the possibility this was a friendly fire incident. >> mark potter with this late development out of arizona. >>> we've learned that after weeks of waiting for access, the fbi has now come and gone from benghazi in the last 24 hours investigating that attack on the u.s. consulate that killed our ambassador

. >> we actually is a good one from our pal, mark potter. take a look at this one. >> have now been oiled -- oh! oh! >> so i mean this one of my favorites. this reporter -- this weather person. can we rerack it? we jumped out of that for a second. he is doing his weather. he is doing his weather. >> oil. >> oh. >> mark potter? >> worth seeing again. >> and? >> oh, god. oh, my god! >> what is it? >> i love that. >> that would be my reaction. i actually, on a shoot, am allergic to cats, a whole different story. i know. i know. >> bernadette. >> deep seeded issues. i'm alearnic to cats and i was on the shoot with this little girl and she gave me her farm cat, broke out in a horrible hive, eyes shut and i had to do the entire interview profile with this eye shut closed. >> all right, papa. >> but wait a second. i'm sorry, i need to go back to this. we just did a whole segment about cats. >> my cats have -- >> zyrtek. >> my cat is hypoallergenic. >> that's what he told you. >> when i adopted her. >> here is our bonus. last night, comedy central a

my colleague mark potter, a florida native, i should point out, is here with more. reporter: good morning to you. when something odd happens here, and that's a regular event, are people throw up their hands and say, only in florida. it can be an unusual place but it's why we love it. it's also very important politically despite its many quirks. around the country florida is seen as america's playground where tourists come to escape their problems back home for a while. >> romney, romney. >> reporter: with almost 19 million residents and 29 electoral votes in a winner take all election, florida is also a political powerhouse, a swing state, courted heavily by the presidential candidates. which for miami based humorist and author dave barry is terrifying given the year 2000 hanging chads election mess here. >> we've already had what a lot of us couldn't figure out how to punch a hole in a piece of cardboard which isn't that surprising when you see florida people drive. >> reporter: many say because sunny florida is so diverse, home to people around the country and the

. >> mark potter in bisbee, arizona, thank you. >>> and again, we told you last night we have an out of control situation. in california, gasoline prices have been rocketing higher in the last 24 hours it has gotten even worse getting close to $6 a gallon in some places. others have no gas to sell at all. nbc's kristen dahlgren from los angeles with us. good evening >> reporter: good evening, since we talked yesterday, things have gone up, take a look. 5.89 as prices in california close in on all-time record highs. just when people in california thought things couldn't get worse. >> five bucks? oh, my god. >> reporter: even bigger sticker shock. >> i had no idea it had gone up this much, you know, just overnight. >> reporter: prices up another 20 cents a gallon since midnight. >> how can it go from what was it? 4.70 a week ago? in california, the price is up 36 cents, to 4.49, 67 cents from last year when gas was 3.82. and some stations are topping five dollars, that is if they have gas. many costco stations shut down this week after running out. and independent stations say they can

>> mark potter in florida.da, thank you so much. >>> still to come, the man whose presidential campaign got bill and hillary clinton involved in politics is dead at the age of 90. this is msnbc. is? every room deserves to look great. and every footstep should tell us we made the right decision. so when we can feel our way through the newest, softest, and most colorful options... ...across every possible price range... ...our budgets won't be picking the style. we will. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. right now get $37 basic installation on all special order carpet. i'm done! [ chuckles ] sweet [ female announcer ] swiffer's wet mopping cloths can clean better than mops in half the time swiffer. better clean in half the time. or your money back. >>> four hours ago this is the aftermath of a shooting the at a town outside of milwaukee, wisconsin. we are waiting for a press briefing from the police chief. that's about to start. when it happens, we're going to go straight to it. we spok

potter, "time" magazine's michael scherer. it is 90 minutes. >> good morning and welcome to the new america foundation. my name is mark schmitte. --schmitt, and i am a senior fellow at the new america foundation. we have pulled together a good panel on what is really going on with money and politics in 2012. we call it "beyond sticker shock," because the idea is to get just the basic idea of that it is a big amount of money. when i first got involved in this issue of in 1996, i was working on the hill. i remember writing this whole session. that begins to seem like the line from dr. evil's demand for $1 million. we are going to do a couple of brief presentations and then an open ended presentation. the first will be michael scherer to give us the landscape of this. i will run their some of the questions we might want to be asking. we will do that pretty quickly. then we will be joined by trevor potter, katherine mangu-ward. many of us have known trevor for many years. katherine mangu-ward is a fellow here. hopefully in addition to moderating she will also provide some provocation which is always useful. toh no more do, i'm goin

potter, "time" magazine, and a member of the roosevelt institute. this is 90 minutes. >> good morning. good morning. welcome to the new america foundation. i'm mark schmidt, a senior fellow at the research institute where i worked for a number of years until a few years ago. andre martinez and i pulled together ad gsh -- a good panel on what's going on with politics and money in 2012 called "beyond sticker shock" to get beyond the idea that, oh, my gosh, there's a huge amount of money in politics. when i started in the issue in 1996, i was working on the hill, and my boss wanted to do a speech about it, and we wrote about how outrageous that $1 billion would be spent in 1996, and that seems like the line from dr. evil's demand for $1 million to not take over the world. what we're going to do here is a couple very brief presentations, and then we'll have an open ended panel discussion. the first presentation will be michael from "time" magazine to give the land scape in politics and what's happening. i'll run through a little -- some of the questions that i think we might m to be asking, the beyond sticker shock questions, do that quickly, and the